Wind Up Dolls
by Misery's-Toll
Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku COMPLETE
1. prologue

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: They say that sakura blossoms fade the fastest. But I wasn't the first to die. He told me once that I could be something, but there's no getting away from here. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Song listened to: 'All I Want for Christmas is You' sung by My Chemical Romance.

* * *

_There are so many. They're like white snowflakes or rain pellets poured out on the counter and she pops them into her mouth two or three or four at a time. Whatever fits down her throat. She downs each with a mouthful of vodka._

_

* * *

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**Us? We're free. But them, they're nothing but** **_Wind-Up Dolls._**

**_

* * *

_**

Prologue

Kiba keeps groaning about how it smells like piss. Sakura wants him to be quiet because Hinata has a fever, but he is a mean drunk she wouldn't dare talk back to.

She's too cold, even when huddled inside of her sleeping bag and the weather makes her nose dribble. She keeps having to wipe her face on the corner of the ripped up fleece to keep the snot from dripping into her hair. She can't smell what Kiba smells, but she's sure he stinks just as bad.

Naruto went down to the square to see the giant tree all lit up and sparkling before she and Hinata came back from food scavenging with empty hands. Hinata was sick earlier, but not so bad. Now she is whimpering, moaning for Naruto in her delirium.

"It's so cold!" she sobs, her tears leaving pale lines on her face where they've left trails through the grime. She's a mess of wet, was too tired and too sick to go out into the bushes to relieve herself before she peed in her sleeping bag.

"Hinata, come on, I'll share," Sakura offers, her voice muddy with mucus. But Hinata only moans Naruto's name again. Sakura wonders if by morning the girl's sleeping bag will be a frozen coffin.

She wishes she could have gone with Naruto to see the lights, and maybe she could have gone after him, but she would have felt bad about leaving Hinata with Kiba while he's this inebriated. He normally took good care of her, but right now he's just spitting in the grass and talking about the difference between _us_ and _them_.

And maybe she was secretly hoping she would see Sai tonight. She'd thought homeless kids were the ideal contestants for Christmas miracles, but she supposes maybe that only applies to the special ones who might do something with their lives. Someone like Naruto.

She drifts asleep for just a little while, dreaming about glowing lights and snow that's fun instead of just cold.

* * *

_Sakura just watches from the doorway as the pills vanish fivesixseveneightnineten._

_Momma? She asks. She's scared. She just wants to be told everything will be alright. But her momma just cries._

_

* * *

_

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters involved.

A/N: I don't know. I was eating a hotdog and decided I wanted to write a scenario in which they are homeless.

This is just a prologue…Not all chapters will be this short or uneventful. This is just a scene setter.

Please review and tell me what you think!

-MT


	2. one

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: They say that sakura blossoms fade the fastest. But I wasn't the first to die. He told me once that I could be something, but there's no getting away from here. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Songs listened to: "The Only Hope for Me is You" by My Chemical Romance, "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" by Snow Patrol, and "Where is My Mind" by Maxence Cyrin.

* * *

_Endless stillness._

_Don't you want to say goodbye? he asks._

_Alone. You are alone._

_This is the last time you'll see her, he insists._

_Momma. Momma is alone._

_

* * *

_

**H is for HINATA who never belonged.**

**For the HELP she never got. For the HAPPINESS she missed out on. For the HATE she had for herself because she was never good enough. For the HOPE she had that someday her father would love her. For never having what it took to be a HYUUGA.**

**H is for HOMELESS and HUNGRY and HAPLESS.**

**-0-**

_**H is for HIM. You never told him how you felt, did you?**_

_**Did you?**_

_**

* * *

**_

Chapter One

Sakura is woken up by the sound of her own wheezing coughs, dried mucus drying up her nose and throat. The world is bathed by the glow of the gunmetal light reflecting off the bridge above her, making everything the color of sickness. The air is still and bitter with cold, and it is much too quiet.

She can make out the wasted form of Hinata in the sleeping bag lying only yards away. There is no rise and fall of her chest. No shivers or shudders or moans.

"Hinata?" she asks, her voice low and gravelly. She waits for the girl to stir, but the world remains undisturbed.

Kiba is gone. And, she supposes, so is Hinata.

Naruto never came back.

* * *

There is an unspoken rule among the runaways that Sakura has never had to pay attention to before now.

If she were to stay long enough for Hinata's body to be discovered, she wouldn't be suspected of murder. Homeless people die of overexposure and starvation and sickness every day and nobody has ever given a damn. Hinata would be just another nobody on the list, buried in another nameless plot beside the rest of her kind.

But the cops have an obligation to pick up any teenage runaway they find, to try and convince them to go home or to one of the charity houses for the underage homeless like Sakura. They will try to convince her she's made a mistake, and that the mistake is a fixable one.

So the rule is _run._

But she doesn't. She crawls out of her sleeping bag and kneels beside the inert form of Hinata's body. The girl's eyelids are lowered, but not shut. Glassy lavender irises stare blankly at the dirt. Sakura always found Hinata's nearly colorless eyes to be beautiful. She brushes her fingers over the lids like she's seen in the movies, and the beauty sealed away forever.

* * *

Naruto doesn't come back until the sun is looming directly overhead. He has donuts.

"Where are my girls?" he calls as he braves the steep of the hill, "Is Dog Breath still here?"

He has a beaming smile on his face when he emerges from the shadows, so proud of his find. When he sees Sakura brushing matted hair away from Hinata's body's empty face, his smile falls very slowly. Sakura watches the news slowly numb him.

"H-Hey. Why's Hinata sleeping so late, huh?" he asks, his expression unreadable but heartbreaking, "Come on, wake up, Hinata! I brought donuts! They have _sprinkles!_"

He drops his knapsack on the ground with a heavy thump as it collides with the frozen ground. Soon he meets the earth as well, his knees thunking and creating indents in the impressionable dirt. Sakura stares at those instead of Naruto's devastation.

"Come on," he urges, nudging the body's stiff arm, "Wake up."

Rigor mortis.

_Wake up._

_

* * *

_

Officer Hatake slides a cup of piping hot coffee across the table toward her. Sakura has never liked coffee, but her fingers are still frozen and her stomach is growling ravenously.

"What is your name?" he asks.

She hacks phlegm painfully into her sleeve instead of answering and then she takes a long, contemplative sip. The coffee is so hot it scalds her tongue, but she welcomes the heat that rushes so soothingly down her abused throat.

"My name is Kakashi," he offers, as well as a box of donuts. Glazed, no sprinkles. Sakura wonders where Naruto is, and what happened to the body that used to be Hinata.

He observes her with a guarded expression, and she does the same right back. Officer Hatake has an eye patch. He has a few days' worth of stubble, genuine bed head, and a slouchy demeanor. This gives her the image of the kind of determined officer that spends nights slaving over clues that might lead him in the right direction on a very important case. It makes him more tolerable if she imagines him to be like the private detectives in those cool novels. But that doesn't mean she's going to tell him a thing.

His observation of her ends soon, when he accepts that she is giving him the silent treatment. He sighs and pulls out an orange book. _Icha Icha Paradise._ The fantastic image in her head is immediately obliterated and replaced with a lonely aging man who couldn't be bothered. Just like everyone else. She erases his face, however interesting his eye patch may be, and he becomes nothing but a badge.

He silently reads over the words of a dog-eared page for about a minute or so. Then he shuts the novel and sets it down on the wooden table between them.

"Can you read?" he drawls lazily, "Write?"

She still doesn't answer him, but continues to watch him too keenly for her to be considered ignoring him. He pushes the box of donuts closer to her, gesturing that they are for her. She eyes them suspiciously, wary that she is being teased. She snatches one from the box, her grimy fingers immediately staining the glaze, and stuffs it in her mouth before he could even think about taking it away from her. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve and the excess glaze blends with the smeared snot.

"You can take the rest with you when you leave, if you want," he offers with a kind crinkle of his eyes _(that don't exist), _"But I wish you would let me talk you into at least staying the night at the church. You know they'll take in the first fifty or so people in line, right? There's no need for you to suffer in the cold if you just get there early. If you head straight there from here you should make it in time."

"Where is the boy that came in with me?" she asks, refusing to comment. Her throat has been somewhat appeased by the heat of the coffee, and most of the rasp in her voice is gone.

"Next door," he reassures her with a smile _(fakefakefake)_ and adds, "I'm not going to make you to call your parents or send you home if you don't want that. But will you at least tell me something about you to remember you by?"

Something to remember her by. Implying hers will be the next body dropped in their hands?

"Her name was Hinata Hyuuga, and she should have been somebody," Sakura tells him, "Make sure her family knows what they've done to her."

He nods solemnly and scribbles something down on a notepad that seems to have materialized from nowhere, "You know, it doesn't have to be this way. You could be somebody, too. Make something of yourself. You're young -it's not too late."

She pulls the box of donuts into her lap, "Can I go now?"

He scans over the sparse notes he jotted down. Adds another few cursive scribbles. And nods, "You may."

* * *

She and Naruto leave the establishment hand in hand, and feel the chill seep back into their bones. Naruto can't eat or speak and Sakura polishes off the donuts before they can make it back to the bridge. The sleeping bags are gone, but Kiba is sifting through trash piles, muttering angrily to himself.

"Hi Kiba," Sakura greets him morosely. He continues to search blindly for a few moments until things catch up to him and he sharply looks up.

"Oh," he says, and that's that for another few minutes as Kiba examines the emptiness of their surroundings. Naruto only barely exists beside her, his thinly gloved fingers knotted around hers tightly but his expression vacant, "They took her already, didn't they? They took Hinata?"

"We did it," Naruto rasps out through tight vocal chords. He seems so distant, "She's gone."

"Oh," he says again. He stares at them suspiciously, as though having come into contact with the police has turned them against him. He backs away slowly before bounding beyond a clump of trees.

* * *

After they wait in line for the church, they're able to convince the workers the allow them to share a room with the lie that they are siblings. They sit through a sermon and song that last long enough for Sakura to get hungry again, and she finally convinces Naruto to eat a little of the chicken pot pie dished out to them.

That night, Naruto and Sakura are left alone together in the darkness. It's only a little bit cool in the safety of the indoors but they curl into each other anyway, and Naruto doesn't complain when her nose drools on his shoulder. He doesn't even acknowledge her as anything more than a heat source, though her flesh seems so frozen to her all the time that she can't imagine what he could be getting out of it.

His calloused fingers slip beneath the many layers of her shirt and sweater and jacket and whatever else she's managed to filch over the past ten months. They brush over the bottoms of her hollowed, bird-bone ribs. He kisses her dirty, dirty hair.

"I never told her I loved her," he says aloud without actually speaking to her. His fingers are cold and they send rippling shivers through her, "I don't want you to ever go thinking I don't love you."

They shed most of their clothing and share a twin bed despite there being more than one. They lie together beneath clean wool, but he doesn't really touch her. That was something of the past when he had loved her differently and was doing her a favor, and when they hadn't known each other well enough to feel guilt. Now he just wants to feel something living and she is there, and they are warm.

* * *

_No! Sakura denies to the badge on this faceless man's chest, That's not my momma!_

_What's wrong with this little girl? Why won't she say goodbye to her poor mother before she's eaten by hell?_

_The casket is slowly swallowed by the earth._

_GULP._

_

* * *

_

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters involved.

A/N: Sorry this chapter took awhile. I haven't been home since Christmas really. This actually only took a couple of hours to write, so I wish I could have had the time to write it earlier.

Thank you for reading, and for those of you who reviewed and added this to your watch. I hope you will continue to read, and maybe even drop a line.

Also, I wanted to emphasize that this is definitely a SasuSaku, even though Sakura might have brief stints with others. And Sasuke will be introduced next chapter.

-MT


	3. two

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: They say that sakura blossoms fade the fastest. But I wasn't the first to die. AU Homeless SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "A Wolf at the Door" by Radiohead, "I Can't Do This" by Plumb, and "Knives and Pens" by Black Veil Brides.

* * *

_Her hands are long-fingered, smooth and worn, nails painted green like the grain of a pear. They're warm and strong and they hold little Sakura to her large soft bosom that promises safety and happiness._

"_You are my daughter," says she. And who is this woman?_

"_My new Momma."_

* * *

**Just look into my eyes and tell me you don't see promises of something better.**

* * *

Chapter Two

When Sakura wakes sometime before sunrise, Naruto is gone. Her stained clothing she'd thrown off the night before is wet and cleaned as well as could be with hand soap, and is hanging over the edge of the top bunk to dry. _Considerate Naruto, _she muses to herself, and buries her face back into the pillow that she pretends still smells of bleach.

* * *

The sky is almost clear at 9:00 sharp when she is ejected from the building. The homeless file out in varying shades of willingness until the church belongs once again only to the saints.

She is hungry again and she curses herself for it. After fishing through every pocket, she compiles only three pennies and a ticket stub that isn't hers from a movie she's never seen. But it gives her inspiration to loiter outside of the movie theater until the wasteful begin to dump their uneaten popcorn in the wastebaskets outdoors. By noon she manages to filch little more than a few sips of watered down Dr. Fizz and the butt-end of a corn dog, but then she is shooed away.

She sits sullenly at the bus stop, wishing she had 72 cents more for a ride. She'd let it take her anywhere, the location unimportant. It's the escape that matters.

A redheaded girl maybe a couple of years older than her sits down beside her. She is wearing a lavender pea-coat Sakura would have fawned over a couple years back, but now would be less than practical. Still, she can't help but admire the flattering shape and delicate embroidery. It makes her nostalgic.

"Hi. I'm Karin," says the girl, adjusting her glasses to get a better view of the homeless wretch sitting beside her. She wrinkles her nose and Sakura wonders if she still smells despite Naruto's attempts at making her more presentable.

Karin fishes through the canvas grocery sack beside her and Sakura spies a mouthwatering plethora of chocolate and candy treats before the girl pulls out a pack of licorice stems.

"Time is bitter and boys are bitterer, don't you think? I need the sweetness to get rid of the nasty taste in my mouth," the redhead continues, and then begins to devour the licorice sticks like what they're really worth, "God, this shit is good."

Sakura watches in silence until finally Karin realizes she left her purse in whatever convenience store she came from. She asks Sakura to watch her groceries, then she vanishes.

She leaves behind a single piece of untouched licorice open on a plastic wrapper on the bench. _No_, Sakura tells herself. But she caves anyway and takes a tiny, tiny bite, sucking on the sliver until it dissolves completely. She lingers on the flavor until Karin returns.

She knows Karin can tell she nibbled off the edge of her licorice by the way it is sticky, but she doesn't comment and she gives her three of her chocolate coins before the bus comes.

"Aren't you getting on?" she asks when Sakura makes no move to get up, "I can pay your fare if you want. I like you."

She considers it. She really does. She imagines getting on that bus and riding until the very last stop, until Hinata isn't even a memory. But she doesn't want to know anymore that Karin knows she's a licorice thief. And maybe, just maybe she doesn't want to have her heart broken when she realizes that elsewhere is just as bad as thiswhere.

"No thanks," Sakura says, and her voice sounds almost human.

As Karin gets on, Sakura watches her distort through the mucky vandalism of the bus windows, and how now her face is vague and muddy when she waves goodbye. Sakura hopes so strongly that her face will go back to normal when she gets off the bus, and she's so scared for the rest of the day that when she gets home her mother won't recognize her because she will have spray-paint letters ingrained in her cheekbones.

Later when she's so hungry she feels like vomiting, she regrets not stealing the bag when she had the chance.

But then again, maybe the hunger is worth it. In exchange, she was liked.

* * *

She's stirred awake in an alleyway. It would be dark if not for the streetlights. She squints into the sky, maybe to make a wish upon a star, but she can't find any.

"Come on, Sakura," says a familiar voice. Sakura searches for the face of her transient friend, but finds it hard to orient herself. She's not sure if she's vertical, horizontal, or even upside down. She's freezing and every joint aches, "You have a fever. Let's get you inside somewhere."

A handkerchief that doesn't belong to her wipes away the drool and snot that's dripping down the side of her face. She tries to breathe through her nose as she's propped up and pulled to her feet by the person that could possibly mean most to her, but she just gets a lungful of sick that she hacks into the open air.

"Sai," she moans into his pale throat. He smells faintly of turpentine and she clings greedily to his heat, to the soft comfort of his fleece jacket. She knows where he's taking her and she knows how she'll have to pay him back later. But right now that doesn't matter. All that matters now is the escape from this hell of sickness. To not end up like Hinata.

"Don't worry, Ugly. I'll take care of you."

* * *

She wakes to his quiet crooning and the violent brightness of his full-spectrum light bulbs. She's wrapped so tightly in the thick blankets laid atop her that she's sweating like a nightmare, but she's fairly sure the fever has passed. She croaks his name and his blank face comes into view.

"Open up," he orders quietly, and she obediently sips whatever sickly sweet medicine he spills down her throat. He removes the wet rag from her forehead she hadn't noticed was there, rewets it, and puts it back in its place on her forehead. The cool relief sends shudders of pleasure down her spine.

She peers over his shoulder and across the room to look at the expanse of paintings lined on easels and tables and against walls. Expertly drawn sketches of her nude and emaciated form seem like trash mixed in with the more refined pieces she knows he gifts to family and shows in galleries. She adjusts uncomfortably in her pile of beanbags, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

* * *

First she takes a shower. She's always appreciated Sai for this, for his emotional, social, and mental shortcomings. A few of her other clients have rinsed her off with the hose in the dead of winter, and she can remember so very clearly the icy blast that felt like murder.

But Sai's shower is hot and caresses her abused skin like the appreciative hands of a lover. It whispers down the hollows of her ribs and the cave of her stomach. She knows from memory that his soap smells of lemongrass, and she wishes her clogged-up nose would give her relief just long enough to take comfort in the pleasant familiarity. She watches the crusted brown wet hurry toward the drain, and she wonders just how much sin she's being cleansed of.

When she steps out from behind the shower curtain and wipes away the mirror-fog, she almost cries. But she doesn't need the headache or the swollenness that comes afterward, so she only looks away from the haunted green-marble eyes and sallow cheeks, and emerges very nakedly into Sai's vibrant studio.

He has her pose in a petal-pink wig, tangled in a curtain of sheer rose-colored fabrics, propped up against an old gas-station sign. She doesn't understand it, but he tells her she doesn't have to. It only has to look like it has meaning behind it to get widespread acclaim. After two hours and twelve sketches, he fucks her against that very same sign, tangled in the twist of rose-colored fabric. The false pink hair gets in her starry eyes and sticks to her perspiring forehead. She stares into the twinkling full-spectrum lights overhead until he spills his empty seed inside her and leaves her to recuperate.

In another hour he feeds her a breakfast of scrambled eggs that taste like nothing, and then he sends her back into the frozen world, smelling of sex with permission to keep the wig if she wants. He always gives her permission to keep whatever prop he adorns her with and she almost always passes. But remembering the limp blonde hair that clung so wetly to her hollow cheeks, for once she takes him up on the offer, and walks proudly into the streets with a brand new head of strawberry locks.

* * *

"_It's okay to remember, Sakura," says Dan. Sakura loves him for his caring green eyes, for his large calloused hands that steady her. She's never had a father before._

_She grins into her knuckles and laughs._

"_Remember what?"_

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: Shortish chapter. Especially for such a long wait. And also I think I said before that Sasuke would be introduced in this chapter, and he wasn't. But that's because I have a new idea! So it will be awhile yet before Sasuke is introduced, but I'm thinking that because each chapter is so short, this story will probably have around 40 chapters in all. Anyway, I hope I still have some readers! I plan on updating this story more frequently now that I've found new inspiration. This chapter was again, more of a stage-setter. I'm thinking the actual _plot_ will start in maybe four or five more chapters. It depends on how impatient I get.

Please review!

-MT


	4. three

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: They say that sakura blossoms fade the fastest. But I wasn't the first to die. AU Homeless SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "Rain" by Breaking Benjamin, "Fer Sure" by Medic Droid, and "The Ice is Getting Thinner" by Death Cab for Cutie.

* * *

_A man and a woman kiss in the rain and grin into each other's lips. The credits roll._

"_I wanna marry Daddy," little Sakura confesses, stone-faced, snuggling into the warmth of his flank. He smells of toothpaste and clove oil when he laughs at her dreams._

"_Daddy's already married, sweetheart."_

* * *

**Star light, star bright, I think I fell in love tonight.**

* * *

Chapter Three

She finds Neji and Tenten outside the abandoned gas-station by the donut shop missing the "O." Neji has his hand up the layers of Tenten's shirts and jackets. She giggles while he murmurs something probably dirty into her ear.

"Hey, ballin' new hairstyle!" Tenten calls when she notices Sakura, but makes no move to push away her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But Sakura is used to them being like this, so openly affectionate. Or maybe it's not affection, but sometimes it's hard for Sakura to remember what love is supposed to look like.

"Thanks," she says, and sits beside them. They won't care if she interrupts as long as she doesn't take away the fun, and she'd prefer to be out of the freezing rain. It's not cold enough to snow, but it's cold enough to hurt, "Have either of you seen Naruto in the past two days?"

"Getting fucked in the ass by Zabuza, last I heard," Tenten giggles and nips at Neji's lower lip. He growls a little and does something beneath the layers of her clothes that causes her to squeak.

Sakura rests her head on her knees and blows on her fingers to warm them. She wonders if Naruto will find her later, or if he'll punish himself with self-imposed solitude. Tenten leans over and breathes wetly onto her ear, "You smell like cum, Sakura-darling."

Sakura turns her face away from her grubby knees and kisses the brunette girl on the cheek, "You jealous?"

* * *

Naruto finds them an hour later with a limp in his step and a smile on his face. His hair is plastered to his forehead by the rain and he smells stronger than she does, of sex mixed with dirt and grime. Zabuza doesn't pay in showers and hot meals. He pays in sadism and money. Sakura wonders what wounds are being covered by his stinking clothing.

"Hey, you look better," he says when he sees her. He gives a little wave to a stoned Neji with a sleeping Tenten in his lap. Sakura passed on the pot, though she has a slight buzz from secondhand inhalation. She's never found it to be worth the hangover.

"You don't," she replies, sweeping her fingers through his icy hair when he kneels down beside her. It chills her hand and she stuffs it back into her armpit for warmth. His lips are slightly blue and he's shivering.

But he only grins, "That's alright, because I got me some green and DONT has a couple of coffees with our names on them."

"Hot chocolate," she reminds him. He laughs a shuddering, freezing laugh and ruffles his raisin-fingers into her fake hair. He disappears into the donut shop missing the "O" and he comes out with a tray of four drinks, sporting a bruise on his cheek. She doesn't ask what happened, just accepts the hot chocolate graciously. Tenten refuses to wake up for her coffee, so Naruto drinks two.

She pulls his head to her collarbone, and they wrap their arms around each other in hopes of keeping warm. He looks a little better with the liquid warmth in his system, but still she worries for his health and his will to fight. He acts unaffected, but she knows he is hurting badly with the loss of Hinata. Sakura is grateful to not have been friends with the girl, but still she is reminded of everyone's mortality.

Neji gets up to take a piss and doesn't come back. Tenten cries in her sleep.

* * *

That evening, Naruto apologizes and says something about having somewhere to be. Which kind of makes her laugh a little in her loneliness because having somewhere to be blurs the line between _us_ and _them_ and she knows Kiba would have a conniption if he were here. To make up for abandoning her again, he gives her a small sum of cash he hopes she will spend on food and leaves Sakura and a half-stoned Tenten shadowed by the overhang of the gas station. The rain has stopped, but has frozen on the ground.

"I want to go dancing," Tenten says wistfully, scraping dirt from beneath her fingernails with half a toothpick, "I used to be a dancer, you know."

"What kind of dancer?" Sakura asks tentatively, because learning anything about the people she spends her time with is difficult and precious.

Tenten points her toes experimentally and reaches for them, but after God-knows-how-long her flexibility has waned. She sighs and pulls her knees back to her chest, "Jazz."

Sakura feels like maybe she should offer something in return, but finds it hard to recall anything she felt particularly passionate about. School, she thinks. She loved school. English in particular.

"I had a crush on Shakespeare in the eighth grade," she admits in a hesitant, laughing voice that betrays a little of her secret longing to pick up a copy of _Othello _one last time. Tenten tilts her head back against the brick wall and smiles at Sakura with wind-chapped lips in response.

"I failed English," Tenten replies, and closes her eyes to trap herself within a memory.

"So did I," Sakura admits, and then adds, "Let's get pissed."

* * *

The hangover isn't worth it, she tells herself repeatedly, but drinks and dances with Tenten until she almost pees herself with laughter. She wants to forget, though she's not exactly sure what. They strut and stumble across the sidewalk, singing and screaming and pushing each other over and giggling. The pink hair is sticking to her cheeks with the sky's drizzles and it clings to the corners of her mouth when she takes swigs from her third bottle of beer.

They settle against a wall, gasping for breath through their drunken tittering and wheeze out not-funny words that _are so funny_ and then there's a man standing so close to them.

"What do you want?" Tenten hollers so loudly, even though he's only maybe a yard away. It makes Sakura snigger and bury her face in the brunette's shoulder. She's getting tired.

The man mentions something about their being inebriated, and then another something about how much would it cost for the two of them? Sakura peers up from Tenten's shoulder, and frowns. The man looks like a total creep. Not unusual, but she was having so much fun until now.

"We're not bleeping whores," Tenten denies hotly, even though Sakura knows Tenten's sold her fair share of sex, just not when she and Neji are in the on-again part of their relationship. Maybe out of some misplaced sense of propriety.

Sakura doesn't hear what Tenten says after that because she notices a busty blonde woman entering an apartment across the street. And she knows it isn't who it looks like, but it still makes her heart stop.

Then the brunette girl is taking off down the street with a string of curses and laughs, leaving a confused and abandoned Sakura behind. She tries to move but stumbles over her own feet. The man jars her skull against the brick of the wall behind her and stars explode behind her eyes.

"You little bitches think you can get away with anything, don't you?" the man snarls, and Sakura curses Tenten in her mind when she feels a sting from a slap across her cheek followed by the bruising grip of fingers around her bone-thin wrist. He kisses her forcefully and gropes at her non-existent breasts, and she just lets her eyes settle on the glow of a streetlight over his shoulder. She wishes she were still nasty and snotty, or maybe that Naruto were here, or maybe that she'd never been born to begin with.

"Hey."

The heavy weight of the man pinning her against stone lessens, "Fuck off, kid."

"Hey," the voice persists, deep and vast but quiet as a purr, "Back off, or I'm calling the cops."

The man sighs and laughs with frustration, and then jars Sakura painfully against the wall one more time before stalking off with a muttered, "Prick." And Sakura thinks maybe she's hallucinating because there's no way someone would give up that easily, would he? Did he just want to teach her a lesson for Tenten's actions?

She sinks slowly to the ground, watching little clouds of breath puff from her mouth. She's surprised to find that she's shaking. She thinks maybe she thought she was going to die tonight. She doesn't feel drunk anymore.

"Are you alright?" says the voice of the man who came to her rescue. When she doesn't acknowledge him, he crouches down in front of her, his face void of expression. But what a beautiful face it is, with sooty hair and ashen skin, hollows where his eyes should be. She licks her lips and tries to smile, but her lip is busted, "Should I take you to the hospital?"

She wonders if maybe he's mistaken her for an actual human being, and the thought makes her start to cry. She buries her face in her dirty hands and sobs high keening wails that make her body shudder and her throat threaten to close entirely. Long-buried grief makes itself present in her gut and her lungs and she sobs and drools it into her fingers.

This stranger-man puts a tentative hand on her shoulder, strokes it comfortingly and awkwardly. His touch causes the abrupt cessation of her wails, though the tears continue to flow without her permission. She looks up at him through swollen glass eyes and she feels some sort of electric connection when their gazes link.

"You're okay," he tells her, even though he doesn't know the half of it. But somehow she finds herself believing it.

* * *

After an hour of wandering, she finds herself beneath the bridge where Kiba and Tenten are sleeping. She settles down between them and curls into their warmth and dreams about dying.

* * *

"_Daddy?" Sakura asks with a tear-filled voice._

_A blood-stained Tsunade shakes her head and cries._

* * *

**Disclaimer:**I do not own Naruto.

**A/N: **I know we've all read the being saved from rape scene. So, I know it's cliché but when have I ever not been? But he wasn't going to rape her, just teach her a lesson like Sakura thought. Tenten must've said something offensive. I kind of like my Tenten. I'm kind of tired. I wrote this all in one sitting.

Also, hopefully I'll start on the next chapter of **BMS** sometime really soon. Or part three of _Fairy Eyes._

Please review. I'd appreciate it very lots.

-MT

**Edit:** OOPS, BTW GUYS, YES THAT'S SASUKE. HI, SASUKE.


	5. four

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

**A/N:** I thought I'd let you know ages. Hinata was 14, Sakura and Naruto are 16, Tenten and Kiba are 17, Neji is 21, Sai is 23, Sasuke is 19, and Kakashi is 35. I'll add more as more characters are introduced.

Songs listened to: "New Messiah" by Dead Heart Bloom, and "Lost in Hollywood" by System of a Down.

* * *

_Little Sakura is playing Chutes and Ladders by herself. She uses her own red character, and the blue that was Dan's. Tsunade watches with thinned lips._

"_Pretty soon you'll be able to play with the little yellow guy, too," she says, sitting cross-legged beside her adopted daughter, "You're getting a new sister, named Shizune."_

_Sakura looks up from her losing game with a grin and asks, "Is that when I'm getting my new daddy?"_

* * *

**A life without you isn't living at all.**

* * *

Chapter Four

She sleeps much later than Kiba and Tenten, but neither move until Naruto gets there. Then he cradles Sakura's aching head in his lap. Her pink wig is gone somewhere and her wiry blonde hair is stuck to her scalp with blood and grease. He brushes it away from her forehead with nimble, gentle thumbs.

"Will you tell me what happened, Sakura?" he begs lightly, pausing in his ministrations to stroke her bruised cheek, her swollen lip, the shadows beneath her sunken red eyes. It's been a long time since she's felt this bad. The hangover pounds heavily in her skull.

"I don't want to hear that from you," she mumbles grumpily into his palm, "Where did you go?"

He has a scraped-up chin and bloodied knuckles and smells of smoke and fish guts. Still, she finds so much comfort in his presence. He resumes his attentions to her clumpy hair, untangling it as gently as he can. When his fingers get snagged and swallowed by a tangle of locks and dried blood, he stops and just cradles her face in his warmish hands.

"I had a favor to pay back," he replies vaguely, and kisses her forehead. His hands are trembling, and she wonders if it's because he's scared for her or because of how his errand affected him. He must be exhausted.

"Get some sleep, Naruto," she tells him, and sits up even though it sends her head spinning, "I did this to myself; no need to worry about me." And this doesn't satisfy him, but sleep sounds good enough for him to let it lie.

* * *

She wanders for awhile, looking for someone familiar she can bum a marker off. It was easy to find a ripped up box she could filch a sheet of cardboard from, but she doesn't know where all the other spare-changers get writing utensils. Tenten's been following her in a subdued, guilty silence. Sakura can't decide between being angry or not. She's trying to feed the fire, but something keeps burning it out. But her head hurts too much to do any soul-searching.

"Do you have any talents?" Tenten asks, "Like…can you juggle or drink milk through your nose or something?"

Sakura lets out a self-deprecating snort, scratches her itchy blood-patched head, "Hardly. What about you? Got any good dance routines?"

It's a little bit warmer today and the sky isn't even threatening to rain. Piles of slush line the gutters and ice slicks apartment stoops, but the ground is mostly just wet, gray cement.

"Fuck you," Tenten responds with a hangover-laden grumble, kicking over the drooping vestige of a snowman. The coals that were its eyes plink against a tree, "What do you need money for so bad, anyway? Looking for a little hair of the dog that bit you?"

Sakura shakes her head, just wishing that Tenten would stop following her, "Aspirin."

She collapses exaggeratedly on the bus stop bench, and Tenten does the same beside her. Sakura replays her meeting with the redheaded girl and wishes again for a moment that she had just taken the candy and ran. She probably would've puked it later, but she's feeling spiteful right now and wants everyone to feel her same sort of misery. When she thinks about it, Karin probably left Sakura to watch her groceries to see if she would take them.

"You coulda just asked Naruto. He'd give you the world if he could. He wants you, bad," Tenten sucks on her plaque-covered teeth. They're dyed brownish from the coffee and beer she's always drinking. Sakura's aren't as bad, but they're freckled tan.

"He's like my twin brother," she shakes her head again. Tenten doesn't know anything, "I won't take his money. He's probably already upset with me for spending what he gave me yesterday on liquor."

"Probably just upset that you didn't share it with him," Tenten laughs, uncaring, grating on Sakura's nerves. Sakura gnaws irritably at a hangnail that tastes like dirt and spits it into the street, and then pulls herself to weary stand.

"Leave me alone for awhile," she says, and leaves the brunette to mope.

* * *

Just as she gives up on a marker, she finds one that sort of works in a trashcan while looking for something she can eat. She spends four hours panhandling at a stoplight before the onramp to the interstate, and comes up with almost five dollars. She doesn't know how much a small bottle of pills will cost, but she hopes it's enough because she's tired and sunburned.

But when she enters the pharmacy, they refuse to sell her any aspirin because she might try to pass it off later as ecstasy tablets or something equally stupid. She doesn't protest too much because they're probably right. She walks to the nearest gas station and buys two semi-warm hotdogs and a can of Dr. Fizz from a reluctant cashier and heads back to the bridge.

Naruto is the only one there when she arrives. He's lying in a pile of leaves and newspaper with a ripped baby blanket tied over his mouth and nose, his hands shoved in his armpits and his legs twisted to the side like he's trying to escape in his sleep.

She ate one hotdog and downed half the can of soda on her way, but saved the rest for him. She sets what's left on the ground and stirs him gently, "Naruto."

His red-veined eyes blink open slowly and wonderingly. He pulls the baby blanket away from his face with sluggish fingers. He slurs out a string of gibberish and then her name, "Sakura."

She smiles achingly, and it tears at her lip. He doesn't look so good. She loops her arm around him and pulls him haltingly into a sitting position. He responds dazedly with drooping eyelids.

"I brought you something to eat," she says, and tries to lift the hotdog to his mouth. He turns his head away.

"I don't feel good, Sakura," he moans with strung-together words. He shakes in her arms and grips weakly at her hand. Her stomach drops and twists unpleasantly and she clings to him so much more tightly.

"We're gonna get you to the hospital, okay?" she says quietly to him. The traffic on the bridge overhead almost drowns out her voice, but she thinks maybe if she speaks any louder she'll burst into tears, and she needs to keep a level head.

He mumbles some more gibberish as she pulls him to a stand and all she can make out is, "I hate hospitals…"

He tries to walk with her, but his knees wobble beneath his weight. Boys have it so much harder than girls out here, Sakura thinks. Naruto would never have someone like Sai to take care of him and save him from illness. She wonders if maybe it's something passed around. Hinata got it and died, Sakura got it and was saved, Naruto has it, and what next?

It's too cold here to live, Sakura's always thought. But she could never leave Naruto behind. And Naruto is waiting for something she can't even guess at.

* * *

They pay the 75 cent bus toll. It's empty enough for Naruto to have a place to sit, and he slumps over, taking up three seats and a lot of the walkway. The passengers migrate to the furthest corners away from them, watching with distrustful eyes. Sakura keeps catching the gaze of the bus-driver in the rearview mirror. He always looks away with a nervous chew of his lip.

It's almost warm inside the safety of the vehicle, but Naruto shivers and trembles like he only does in the worst of snowstorms. He keeps his face pressed into her jean-clad thigh, letting out shuddering pain-filled breaths that warm her skin. Three minutes into the ride, he turns suddenly and vomits on her shoes. He tries to mumble something like an apology, but his teeth chatter too violently to get the words out. All but one sleeping passenger get off at the first stop.

They get off at the third stop, Sakura's shoes making wet, sick squelching noises on the ground as they exit. The bus driver lets out a disgusted grunt and speeds away as soon as the doors are shut.

She thinks of nothing but her goal, and that keeps her from curling up into a little ball and crying. She's lucky Naruto probably only weighs a little over one-hundred pounds, because she doesn't think she could do this if he were any heavier.

"Some day you're gonna get out of here, and you're going to move into a big fancy house with an endless supply of ramen and you're gonna have a wife that loves you, and three sons and a daughter. You're going to be the President or the Prime Minister of some huge awesome country and you'll be loved by everybody," she murmurs into his ear. He gives her a sidelong glance between quivering eyelids and a tiny smile to accompany it. Then he hacks painfully into her shoulder and they have to stop walking for a minute so he can catch his breath. His forehead burns against her throat.

"You first," he whispers. Then he blacks out.

* * *

_Twelve year-old Sakura has a crush on a freshman boy. Obito Uchiha was adopted, like her._

_Thirteen year-old Sakura watches a silver-haired man cry as they lower his adopted son into the dirt. She wonders what makes him so sad, when people are so easily replaceable. Obito understood that._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** HotPockets really aren't as edible as they used to be. For real. Anyway, I think there's maybe three to six more chapters until we see Sasuke again…Um? I'm bad at making projections. But anyway, when we see Sasuke again, it'll seriously turn into a SasuSaku, I swear it.

Thank you so much for the reviews and to the people who have added this to their favorites! I appreciate it a lot.

Please review!

-MT


	6. five

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Songs listened to: "What if the Storm Ends" by Snow Patrol, "Cracks (Flux Pavilion Mix)" by Freestylers, and "Hear You Me" by Jimmy Eat World.

* * *

"_You're my pride and joy," Tsunade has always told her, "My little A plus student."_

_Sakura looks at her very first high school report card and frowns at the line of C pluses._

"_What am I now?" she asks. Tsunade doesn't say anything, just ruffles her hair and kisses her on the forehead._

'_Scared,' Sakura thinks, 'I'm scared.'_

* * *

**N is for Naruto who never stood a chance.**

**For the NEGLECT he suffered. For the NAMES he was called. For the NAKED heart he gave to others who trampled and trashed it and NEVER appreciated its worth. For the NAIVETE he betrayed himself with. **

**N is for NOBODY and NOTHING and NOTICE ME. **

**-0-**

_**N is for NEED. You loved each other more than you ever told. He's gone now.**_

* * *

Chapter Five

Sakura sits in a little plastic chair beside the gurney Naruto is spread across, just waiting. She keeps watching the clock above the receptionist's desk and the hands never seem to move. The floor is so full of moaners and groaners and the silent sufferers, but there aren't enough doctors and nurses to go around at a free clinic. Ever. She squeezes Naruto's limp, grimy fingers tightly.

They're there three hours before a faceless, meaty man in medical scrubs and gloves and a surgical mask comes up to them.

"We'll take him, now," he says through the sterile cover over his mouth. Homeless people are dirty. He doesn't want to catch Naruto's cooties.

The doctor and his assistant start to take Naruto away from her, to somewhere she doesn't think he can come back from. She won't let go of his hand. They can't take Naruto away from her, they can't, _they can't._

"Please, miss. Let go. Someone will attend to you in a moment." The assistant stares her down with exasperation, crossing her arms across her frog-print scrubs, but Sakura can't look away from Naruto's tortured, sleeping face. She grips his bony fingers like a lifeline. Like she is his lifeline.

"Nononono!" she refuses through wobbling lips because she knows this might be the last time she ever sees him. He could vanish behind a curtain and never be seen again. A magic disappearing act. It's happened so many times before.

"We have many other patients to attend to and if you want us to help your friend, you have to let us or we'll have to ask you both to leave," says the doctor. And Sakura wants to scream because it's not fair because all she wants to do is stay by Naruto's side so she can make sure they do everything they can to make him better. But if she tries, they won't see him at all.

She kisses his grimy, sweaty forehead and whispers, "Don't die."

* * *

They make her leave anyway, after they patch her up and tell her she probably has a slight concussion. She's not in serious condition, she's not related to Naruto, and they don't have room for her, so she goes feeling heartbroken and terrified and alone.

She stumbles on numb legs over the icy patches on the sidewalk, shaking and trying not to scream or cry.

"Sakura!" calls a familiar voice, and she looks up to see Kiba wearing her pink wig. It looks awful on him, she thinks vaguely.

"My wig," she calls back, and walks until she literally bumps into him. She's too tired and dazed and scared to think about anything. She stares into one of the red, tattooed triangles on his cheeks. He grins down at her and her gaze switches to one of his chipped canine teeth. She doesn't like Kiba so much, but she deposits her head on his shoulder and says, "Give me back my wig."

He laughs in response, rips it off and drops it unceremoniously on top of her head. She situates it comfortably and backs away a little bit. She thinks Kiba might have been handsome before he went crazy. Hinata said his drunkard mother set fire to his dog once, and then he tried to kill her in a fit of rage. He felt so guilty that he ran.

Sakura's not sure if it's true, but if it is, she wonders if Kiba's mother wants him back. If _she_ feels guilty.

"We're gonna go hit Sound," he says with a wolfish grin, pelvic thrusting against the air, "You wanna come with? Tayuya scored us some free passes from the DJ."

She considers it. She thinks of Naruto lying pale on a marble slab somewhere and nods, because she doesn't _want_ to think about it. Kiba's grin widens exponentially and he puts his arm around her, grinding a little bit against her hip. She doesn't care enough about his uncomfortable behavior to shove him off. She just pinches him on the exposed skin of the back of his hand.

"How'd she do that?" she asks, reluctantly. Sometimes there's a tale to tell, and then sometimes there's not.

"A good old fashioned blowjob. That bitch's got a mouth on her," he giggles lightly and leans down to lick the shell of her ear, teasingly, "You know, if you ever wanna give it a try…"

She does shove him this time.

"Shut up, Kiba."

* * *

"Nice hair," Tayuya says when they meet up between two apartment buildings. Sakura and Tayuya aren't friends, but they've met and they don't dislike each other. Tayuya stabbed Kiba in the thigh once. Sakura's not exactly sure of the specifics, but for some reason he and she have been friends ever since, "But you sure ain't H."

"H?" Sakura asks. Kiba giggles his high pitched laugh again. He does it when he's excited or upset. It reminds her a little bit of a hyena.

"Hinata," Tayuya glares at her like she's stupid and then throws her hands up in the air, "Whatever. The clothes I got were for H and she's got bigger titties than you, but you'll make 'em work."

* * *

It shakes with the force behind the sound. It's hot and damp inside the club, the sweat of strangers giving it a musky, not entirely unpleasant smell. In the tight leather of her borrowed clothes, beads of sweat immediately begin to gather.

"You're a pretty little thing aren't you?"

She grinds against a nameless, unknown male, throws her head back and laughs. His hands draw circles over the hollow bowl of her hips, and she grinds closer and harder, sliding her tongue over the base of his throat and trailing her fingers through his shining white-blonde hair. He's pretty, too.

Two songs later has her against the wall by the restrooms, his hand cupping her ass and his tongue in her mouth. His teeth are so sharp.

In exchange for her patient and avid compliance, he buys her three pink martinis, because he says it looks like her style. The next time they kiss she bites him on the lip so hard that it draws blood. She wants him to see her and care about her and not only want to fuck her, but when he grins with bloodied pointed teeth she knows her feistiness has only made him hornier. She misses Naruto.

Somewhere around midnight, when a large redheaded male arrives as the man's designated driver he asks, "Can I have your number?" He cups the swell of her toilet-paper stuffed bra. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

"Sorry," she says as huskily as she can, leaning into his touch so she can filch his wallet, "I don't have a phone."

Tayuya emerges from the crowd, grabs her hand, and pulls her into the dancing abyss.

* * *

4:00 am has her waking up on the cold floor of the room behind the bar, her head pillowed on Kiba's coat. He vanished sometime around 1:00 to make a deal with a shady-looking character, and she hasn't seen him since.

She can hear moaning and opens her eyes, watching from her horizontal position as Tayuya kneels compliantly on the ground as a dark-haired, dark-skinned man thrusts into her mouth. Tayuya's pink hair is brown at the limp, greasy roots the DJ tugs at in his bliss. Are there people that love? Sakura wonders. Then she rolls her eyes, turns over, and goes back to sleep.

* * *

"Hey, wake up."

Sakura groans and opens her bleary eyes. There are no windows and she can't see the clock with Tayuya's fuck-buddy standing over her. She wonders what time it is. The hangover is back.

"You've gotta leave," says the DJ. He's wearing a grey tank, and his entire arms and torso are tattooed with swirling spirals. A peculiar design, she thinks. She pulls on her old sneakers and new coat without speaking. Until she reaches into the coat pocket and can't find the wallet she took from the man the night before.

"Where's Tayuya?" she asks, shifting uncomfortably. The leather is pinching in all the wrong places and she wonders if she looks as hellish as she feels. The DJ laughs in way that Sakura thinks sounds a little bit mocking.

"Grabbed your shit and took off," he says with a smirk, "But if ya ever need a little money, you know how to get it."

She has to heave her entire weight against the door to get it open, and when she does, snow floods at her feet. The outdoor light stings her eyes and causes them to water. Her tears burn frozen crow's-feet at the corners of her lids. The sky is clear of clouds and glows white. Everything glows white. The results of a perfect snowstorm.

Sakura shoves out into the snow, and it immediately swallows her legs with icy cold. She wades through it with rapidly numbing limbs until she reaches the salted sidewalk, shivering, teeth chattering. There's nobody outside. It's empty, monochromatic nothing. She wishes Kiba or Tayuya were here. She wishes she had money for the bus.

It takes her half an hour to get to the bridge where Kiba, Neji, and Tenten are playing Bullshit with an incomplete card deck. There isn't any ice under the bridge, but a cold, hardness to everything makes it just as uncomfortable. They don't acknowledge her when she crunches up beside them, stomping the snow from her shoes.

"Hey, guys," she says, and Kiba wiggles his fingers a little in greeting, but they all mostly stare at their hands of cards with serious expressions, "Have any of you seen Naruto?" She's hoping maybe he's been discharged and came back.

"Nuh-uh. Nobody's seen him since he got sick," says Tenten, and Neji and Kiba nod their heads in agreement, "Wanna play next round?"

A shiver goes down Sakura's spine, but she tells herself, _it's okay._ Because he's probably just still at the clinic, waiting out the final symptoms. So that he's not contagious. Right?

"No thanks," she says, chewing her lip, "Anybody got 75 cents? I'm gonna check the hospital."

Tenten fishes through her pockets and comes up with sixty, because she owes Sakura a little for the beer and the asshole who assaulted her. The brunette persuades Neji to fork over the remaining fifteen in their strange unspoken language, and kisses him on the chin in thanks. He smiles a little bit. And it makes Sakura wonder if maybe they are in love in some strange way that's difficult to see.

She walks to the bus stop with her heart heavy and beating hard. The bus driver is the same as before, and when she gets on he gives her something she can only describe as a sneer. But because the weather is so bad, the streets are almost empty and so is the bus, and Sakura thinks that if he has a problem with her that's too bad. She isn't hurting business today. She sits in the same seat she did last time.

She feels someone's eyes on her, and when she looks around, she realizes it's Sai. He's sitting with a pretty, young inky-haired girl, their hands linked. His lips thin into a firm line, and she looks away. As far as real life is concerned, they don't know each other. He and his girlfriend get off at the first stop.

* * *

When she gets to the clinic, its just as busy as the night before. Bad weather causes bad accidents, she supposes. The woman at the front desk refuses to tell her anything, so she waits and paces pensively until she can spy either the doctor or the nurse from the night before.

She sees the doctor first.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" she calls, waving him down, nearly tripping over herself in the process of getting to him. She's shaking with nervous, fearful anticipation.

"Wait in the line for your turn like everyone else," the doctor says in a dreary tone. The surgical mask is still in place. She doesn't think she could've recognized him without it.

"No, no," she says, grabbing his sleeve so that he'll _please_ stop walking away from her. He yanks it out of her grasp like she's contaminated but stops moving for only a second, "I'm not here as a patient. I'm looking for my friend who was admitted here last night. A blonde homeless boy with blue eyes who was sick. He's got scars on his cheeks that look like whiskers."

The doctor sighs and ponders this for a moment, peering over his shoulder for a moment to see something that she can't identify. "Right, I remember. He's gone," he says, and starts walking away again.

_GoneGoneGoneGoneGone. _It feels like a punch to the gut and she can't breathe, can't breathe.

"Wait! Gone how?" she races after him, desperate, so desperate, "Gone how?"

The hospital walls feel like they're closing in on her and the doctor is getting further and further away. _GoneGoneGoneGoneGone. _She can still feel Naruto's dirty hand wrapped around hers, can still see his luminescent eyes, his kind smile and his whiskered dimples. Her fingers twitch in his absence.

The crater in her chest slowly grows, larger and larger, sapping away her energy. She sinks to the floor on jelly legs and stares at the tile unblinkingly. Her stomach is empty but she retches for what feels like an eternity, peach-colored stomach acid and spit pooling on the floor.

_Dead?_

She trembles on the floor until they make her leave.

* * *

She spends the remainder of the day running around town, looking for him because she has to know. She needs to find him, see him and feel him, to know if gone really means _gone_. An entire year of a therapist drilling into her head that _lives are sacred and people aren't replaceable,_ and where has it gotten her?

Then it's nighttime and there's nowhere left to look and she's in an alleyway, ripping things apart and throwing them around and screaming, _screaming._ Until there's no air left in her lungs. _And how is this possible_? She throws herself into a pile of dismembered trash bags, hiccupping without crying and scratching at her dry arms until they bleed because _how is this possible__?_ GONE.

She lies there, staring blankly at the brick wall, cradling her churning stomach and shivering in the dark, alone alone alone. A car alarm going off in the night is what finally breaks her, and she sobs into the frozen air. She's so cold that her limbs are entirely frigid and numb and when she picks up the colored paper on the ground, she can't feel it. She wonders if and kind of hopes that she'll freeze to death tonight.

In red letters the words _AKATSUKI_ and _CIRCUS._ A fairy boy's back is bowed mid-flight, two pale wings emblazoned on the back of his leotard. A trapeze artist. And Sakura knows that this is the man that saved her.

Tiny letters in the corner spell _Sasuke Uchiha._

* * *

"_Why's your forehead so large?" asks a skinny girl with asymmetrical, violet-dyed hair. She's a Freshman like Sakura, but she's dating a Senior and that makes her powerful. Sakura thinks she's beautiful._

"_Large?" she asks._

"_Forehead girl!" they taunt. She's in a room full of people but she's never felt more alone._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** For anyone who might have not caught on, the whitish-blonde haired boy was Suigetsu and his redheaded designated driver was Jugo. The DJ is Kidoumaru.

…So yeah. Sasuke's with the traveling circus.

I'd really like to thank everyone for the reviews in the last chapter! Half of the reviews for this story are anonymous. How cool is that? I mean, I'm pretty sure it's EXACTLY half.

Anyway, please review!

-MT


	7. six

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Songs listened to: "The Drugs Don't Work" performed by Ben Harper and "Snow" by Dear Euphoria.

A/N: I'd like to mention that I recommend reading this story in 3/4, if you're not already.

* * *

"_I can't do this anymore," Sakura sobs into her knees, letting drool and snot dribble into her lap. As long as her mother can't see her shame._

_Tsunade watches unsympathetically and sighs, "This again, Sakura?"_

* * *

**I can't even remember what living feels like.**

* * *

Chapter Six

Time passes unrecognizably. Sakura spends most of it sleeping or lying still to conserve energy, waiting for someone or something to tell her she can't anymore. But the day doesn't come.

She's living in a dream world where nothing happens, but she's floating in a world of monochrome.

* * *

A week later, when Sakura wakes up, her eyelids are encrusted with frozen sleep, her cheeks wind-burnt. She's stiff and achy and broken-feeling, but she's alive, and that alone is enough to make her feel dread. She lies there, looking at the wall and seeing nothing, wondering _am I real?_ Because sometimes she finds it very hard to say.

She feels a soft huffing of breath on top of her head, feels the cold tip of a nose against her earlobe, and she turns very slowly. A sweater-clad pug stares at her inquisitively. Maybe because she's lying in a pile of trash bags.

She reaches out a leaden hand to pat it on the head, and notices the collar. It's attached to a leash that trails up into a man's gloved hand.

She wonders if maybe this is where she'll be stabbed to death and force-fed to a dog to hide the evidence, but then realizes that this man looks familiar. Silver-haired, though young and tired-looking. He has an eye patch.

"Your hair is different. But you look familiar," he says. And she tries to talk but all that comes out is a wheeze of fog. He kneels down, sullying his khaki, corduroy pant legs in the wet sludge of the alleyway, and peels off his gloves. He settles a hand on her forehead, brushes her temple and her cheekbone with the backs of his fingers. She tries to shrink away, but her bones have abandoned her. He adds, "You're probably hypothermic."

The dog lets out a whine and presses a nose into the limp flesh of her hand. She feels very tired, but she tries to give the pug a little smile. Maybe a grimace comes out instead when the police officer scoops her filthy lump of self up into his arms with a grunt.

It's like she's soaring. Her head lolls into his shoulder, her watering eyes wetting his shirt the color of the night sky. She zones out for awhile, caught up somewhere between waking and sleeping until she feels the ripped padding of a car beneath her, smelling of pine air freshener.

Some blurred dialogue passes between the policeman and the driver, who if she squints her eyes a little bit she can make out to be a cabby, who might be a woman.

"No pets," the woman is grumbling. And then the police officer says something that maybe placates the her because then he is morphing into Naruto and sliding into the seat next to Sakura. Sakura's feet settle in his lap and she lets her eyelids drift shut.

"Naruto," she murmurs, tries to speak louder but her voice is trapped somewhere within her chest, "Naruto, I'm sorry..."

He's saying something back but she can't make out what it is, so she tries again, "I'm really sorry."

He doesn't respond this time, so she opens her heavy eyes, and when she does she realizes why. She's lying with her head in her adoptive mother's lap, she's not slumped against a cab door.

They're in the backseat of the old minivan. Sakura is five years-old, gangly and awkward and much, much smaller. The trunk is piled with boxes. They're moving, Sakura realizes, they're moving from the tiny apartment. Dan is driving, repeatedly changing the radio station and annoying her mother. Sakura is sick with a cold, Tsunade humming to her and rubbing her back to keep her comfortable.

"Momma?" Sakura whispers, sounding parched and tired and a little bit ashamed. The woman looks down, blonde haired and almond-eyed and she's crying.

* * *

She blinks her eyes open to find herself lying on a sofa-bed, a plaid quilt and a fleece blanket tucked around her stripped form. She's not nude, but she's wearing something soft and thin. She wants to be scared but she doesn't have the energy. She lets out a little moan.

"Shh," whispers a woman, tipping a spoonful of yellow to her lips. Sakura searches her face and sees something good there. She swallows obediently and goes back to sleep.

* * *

She wakes again and kicks off the blankets. Her foot connects with the softness of another's flesh. The woman from before flips over in the sofa-bed and glares with brown eyes. They're hard, but kind. They remind her of her mother's.

"Keep still," the woman grumbles. Her hair is dyed violet and pulled back into a sleep-rumpled ponytail.

"Water," Sakura whispers back. The woman points toward a glass sitting in the dull illumination of a lamp on the table next to Sakura's side of the bed, turns back over and immediately begins to snore. When Sakura gulps it down it tastes faintly metallic, but at least it's soothing. She curls back up under the blankets and drifts away.

* * *

Sakura awakes feeling like she's slept for a very long time. Evening light streams through apartment windows. She can hear the clanking of pots and pans and when she sits up, for once the world doesn't tilt around her.

The policeman from before is in the kitchenette of the small apartment, cursing under his breath as he rifles through a cabinet. He finally pulls out whatever pot he was looking for, and he sets it on a stovetop burner. He exhales through his teeth.

She looks around the room and makes eye-contact with the pug. It cocks its head curiously, and she cocks hers in response. It hops up, shakes out it's fur, and it's tags go _clinkclinkclink._ The officer looks up from his slow attempt at dinner, and finds her awake and beckoning his dog. It jumps up on the bed and flops down in her lap.

"His name is Pakkun," says the policeman, "I'm Kakashi."

He's in a white undershirt and a pair of blue uniform pants. She looks down at herself and sees that she's in a large, drooping shirt. She tugs at her hair and finds that the wig is gone, and that her real hair is dirty and matted and exposed. At least no one bathed her, she decides.

"Will you tell me your name?" Kakashi asks, nursing a mug of coffee. Sakura strokes the fur of the dog in her lap, self-soothingly, "I saved your life; we'll call it even."

She knots her fingers in the sagging skin of the dogs jowls. It licks her grubby skin in a blissful daze. But she is a wreck. She is living without breathing, wondering _why her? _Why is she alive when Hinata had to die, frozen in a sleeping bag of her own piss? When Naruto is _gone_? Why is she continuously spared?

"Sakura," she rasps.

* * *

She showers and breathes in the precious steam, the smell of his lavender soap. When she gets out, she bypasses the mirror entirely and exits the bathroom in a towel, finding a sack of new clothes with the tags still attached. The jeans are size ones and they still sag low over the bowl of her hips, the shirt, sweater and coat baggy. But they're warm and soft and _clean_ and they still smell fresh from the store.

Kakashi and Sakura eat soup, sitting beside each other at the counter.

"I feel a bit compelled to save kids like you. It feels sort of like paying penance to my son," Kakashi says, "He committed suicide a long time ago...and I know it isn't the same, but it makes me feel a little bit better."

When he exits the room to go to the bathroom, she leaves. If she'd stayed a little longer she might have learned the son he lost was her first childhood crush.

* * *

It's been two days, she finds out after wandering the streets for awhile. She was unconscious for the better part of two days. The sky is more blue than it is white, and the snow is mostly melted. The world has finished grieving the loss of Naruto. It is moving on. But she doesn't know how.

She eventually goes back to the alleyway Kakashi found her in and finds the flyer of the fairy boy. She fondles the water-warped paper between her fingers lovingly for a moment, and folds it up before storing it in her back pocket for safe keeping. She doesn't know what she's going to do with it, but having it makes her feel a little less broken.

It's near dark, and Sakura decides that she really doesn't want to be alone. She's been alone long enough. She's made up her mind; she doesn't want to die. She wants to live...for Naruto. And one day she'll live in a big fancy house with an endless supply of ramen. With a husband that loves her and three sons and a daughter. She'll be the President or the Prime Minister of a huge awesome country and she'll be loved by everybody.

During her inauguration she will stand in front of the people of her nation and say, "This is for Naruto."

And then her life will have worth.

* * *

It is dark when Sakura arrives at the abandoned service station. The donut shop missing the 'O' is closed for the night, the letters providing no illumination. An electric sign outside a drugstore says it's fifty degrees outside and the air is clear, the streets thawed.

Tenten lets out a wolf-whistle when Sakura comes within viewing range. Neji's head is lolled over her shoulder, his long brown hair shielding his face from her. His fingers are twitching in his lap, conducting a song only he can hear. "Where you been, honey? Romantic getaway with Naruto?" she asks.

Sakura drops bonelessly to the ground, letting the pavement threaten to tear the knees of her new jeans. She's tired, and walking so much today after a week of immobility has taken its toll. Tayuya is playing with a lighter, scrolling her thumb over the flint-wheel and it makes a _flick flick_ sound. Sometimes a flame ignites and sometimes it doesn't. Sakura focuses her eyes on that instead.

"No," she eventually responds, "He's dead, I think."

Kiba who is curled into a ball on the ground, giggles.

* * *

"_Are you afraid you've made a mistake?" asks the therapist. She doesn't have a face, and that scares Sakura. No one has a face anymore._

_Sakura smiles and looks where she thinks the eyes might be, "Probably the worst mistake I'll ever make."_

_Little does she know..._

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** Sorry about the extremely long delay. It's been a busy sort of past couple of weeks for me.

I meant to update and ask before June 11th, but did anybody go to Akon in Dallas the weekend of June 10-12? I was there that Saturday, and had lots of fun! (: Though I think I bled myself dry of money.

Also, if I don't respond to your review, it's not because I haven't read it or didn't plan on responding. It's because I meant to respond, and probably typed half a message to you and then forgot I didn't finish it. That tends to happen often.

So please, please review! Thank you so much for reading. I'll try to respond to everyone. (:

Sasuke in the next chapter!

-MT

**EDIT: OOPS, I LIED. SASUKE IS IN THE CHAPTER AFTER NEXT. NEXT CHAPTER IS A BRIEF INTERLUDE. HAHAHAHA.**


	8. interlude

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "Angel" by Massive Attack (for Sakura), "Dissolved Girl" by Massive Attack (for Kakashi), "Follow" by Brandi Carlile (for Naruto), and "The Winner Is" by Devotchka (for Sasuke).

* * *

_There are so many. The pills are like diamonds glittering in the little plastic prison. She shakes the capsule and they sparkle._

_"I don't want this!" she sobs into the neck of the bottle of vodka. But is there any other option?_

* * *

"**[Men] eat us hungrily, and when they are full, they belch us." -Shakespeare (Othello)**

* * *

Interlude

**Sakura**

"I'm hungry..." Tenten moans. It's sunrise, but the light is coming up behind them. Instead of pinks and blues and purples, they're witnessing the buildings ahead of them turn from vague blotches of gray into stand-alone slate blocks.

The lighter is empty of fluid, but Tayuya is scrolling the flint-wheel again, her eyes wide and vacant. Hibernation mode, Sakura used to call it when she was in high school. When the pressure got too high, she would just...shut off.

"DONT is open," she shrugs, though the gesture is swallowed by her coat. She is thankful for the interest the police officer took in her, the new jacket keeping her warm where the old one wouldn't have. She left the unfamiliar comfort of his apartment because she was scared. When he looked at her, sometimes she could see a flicker of something. A lone eye, crinkled in vague self-imposed sadness. A mouth, one corner turned up with something like _hope._

She doesn't want to be someone's last hope. And maybe she doesn't want to be able to see again, either.

"Ha-ha," Tenten rolls her eyes and brushes her thumb over Neji's adam's-apple. He hasn't stirred since his fingers stopped twitching somewhere around midnight. Sakura glances from Tayuya to Neji and back again. To Kiba, who is wriggling in his sleep like a newborn puppy experiencing dreamland for the first time.

Sakura pulls herself to a shaking stand, her knees wobbling before they remember how to take her weight. Her shoulders are vibrating with what it takes her a few moments to realize is anger.

"YOU'RE ALL FUCKING HOPELESS!" she screams, spittle flying from her mouth, "You all just lie here in your own filth, doing nothing, _waiting_ to die like fucking cancer patients who've lost control!"

Tayuya's thumb on the flint-wheel stops. The lighter drops somewhere in her lap.

"Control, sweetie?" she murmurs between chapped lips that threaten to crack when they part. A lopsided smile forms on her face before it fades away.

Then there is nothing. No reaction from anyone.

"I'm leaving," Sakura says, trembling out the last of her frustrations, "I'm getting on the bus and I'm just...leaving."

She shoves her hands in her pockets and starts to walk away, almost kind of grinning. She thinks of that girl, Karin.

"_Aren't you getting on? I can pay your fare if you want. I like you."_

She imagines taking the girl's hand, smiling and saying _Yeah, let's go._ _I like you, too._

* * *

_Sakura's been on the road for three weeks. Her skin is wind-burnt, her lips so chapped that moving them causes them to crack. Money has run out and now food only exists to mock her._

"_I want to go home," she whispers to herself through quiet tears, just to hear herself say it. To see how the words sound from her mouth. They sound...untrue. She's scared, so very scared. But the only thing that terrifies her more than this aimless wandering is the idea of returning to that life that could have killed her._

* * *

**Kakashi**

The apartment really is so quiet without Anko. Or that girl, Sakura. She couldn't have been older than seventeen, he decides. Probably younger.

Kakashi runs his fingers through the fringe on his forehead, brushing it back against his hairline. 35 and he feels so old already. Maybe Sakura was the age his son would be, were he still alive. No, she couldn't possibly be eighteen. Obito...

He's staring at the countertop, fiddling with a spoon when the phone rings. He lets it ring eight times and hit the answering machine before he allows himself to be jerked into reality.

"_Hey, Kakashi. It's Rin. I was just calling because-" _He knocks a stack of papers from the counter in his rush to get to the phone, and scatters them further when he throws himself over the faux-marble top to wrench it from its cradle.

"Yo," he pants into the phone, and swallows heavily, "Just got in. From the...uh, grocery."

There's a skeptical silence on the other end, followed by a heavy breath of crackling static. Kakashi wonders if Rin plans on coming over. Should he clean up? He looks around, and really the only mess is the scattered papers across his kitchenette floor tiles and the sofa bed he's left unmade even though he's had plenty of time to fix it. Maybe he's hoping Sakura will come back. Or Anko. Anyone at all.

Maybe this is all Kakashi is. A tragedy of waiting and hoping for the impossible, missing chances at living and accomplishing, because _really_ what he's hoping for is that he'll wake up one day. That he'll realize that the past four years were a dream. And Obito will walk through that door.

"_I bet you haven't been anywhere near the grocery in a week," _Rin deadpans.

Kakashi wonders what she's doing right now. Is she washing dishes, wearing that lavender apron he got her so long ago? Is she with Iruka, and is he upset that she's calling her ex-husband? Is her hair short again? Long? Pulled back?

"I went yesterday, actually," Kakashi grins cheekily into the telephone, only because he knows she can't see it.

"_Yesterday," _Rin snorts, _"Well, I called to make sure you were taking care of yourself. Iruka said you seemed preoccupied, and not in a positive way."_

Kakashi thinks of earlier in the day, how he and Iruka discussed the weather over a cup of coffee. How his coworker had tried to steer their small-talk into questions of _Are you doing okay?_ Because he wasn't okay. Because he'd let that girl slip through his fingers. But he wasn't about to tell Iruka that, no matter how much he liked the man.

"I miss you," Kakashi says, because it's the truth. And because he doesn't like that his best friend, his coworker, his ex-wife's bedmate is reporting his every move when Kakashi should be able to do it himself. He should be able to cradle her face in his hands and tell her, _I lost her._

She sighs another burst of crackling static, and it's followed by another string of silence, and then his name, _"Kakashi..."_

He shakes his head even though she can't see it, "Are you coming over?" He hopes she is. But he knows the answer.

"_Not today, Kakashi. I've got to go, now. I have things to do. Please take care of yourself."_ And after she hangs up he continues to hold the phone to his ear, just to listen to the dial tone for awhile before he returns to the silence.

Quiet rooms creak, and this one screams.

* * *

_She hates this city more than the others. It's colder, less sympathetic. When people walk passed her hunched-over form, they sneer and walk a wide arc around her._

_She's begging outside a donut shop, not for quarters and pennies, but for something warm to eat or drink, pleasepleaseplease._

"_Hey! Gross chick! You're doing it wrong!" She turns around in time for a scrawny blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy to almost barrel into her._

"_Don't worry! I'm gross, too," he laughs, mistaking her bewildered expression for insult, "Call me Naruto."_

* * *

**Naruto**

He woke up in the middle of the night, one of many faceless moaners and groaners lined up in a row waiting to die. The ceiling was cheap white boarding, and it reminded Naruto of school so long ago. For a moment as he blinked up at it he wondered _is it over?_ But then there were thick-skinned fingers stroking his scarred cheeks, his knuckles.

_Hey, gramps. That'll cost ya,_ Naruto tried to say to the white-haired man, but his voice got caught somewhere in his ruined throat. He tried to jerk away, but his failing body refused to obey.

But then the old man was smiling and maybe crying? And saying, "Don't worry, Naruto. You're going to be fine."

That was a week and a half ago. Now Naruto is staring out the window of his godfather's truck as it bumps its way toward the highway exit. He's at the end of a six hour car drive, but the whole thing was _worth it_. He has to find Sakura, to tell her that he's okay now, that they'll be okay now, that he didn't leave her and never_everever_ would.

"Here's good, old man!" Naruto bounces in the passenger seat as the car makes a reluctant stop in the high-traffic intersection. Naruto met Hinata here, has spare-changed in this very spot more times than he can count. It's as good a start as any.

He begins his attempt to clamber out of the vehicle without becoming road kill, but his godfather clamps a hand down on his arm, ignoring the steadily building chorus of aggravated car horns building behind them.

"The bookstore?" Jiraiya asks with hesitant eyes, "You'll be there?"

Though Naruto is sure he knows less than half of what there is to know about the old man, he isn't so blind as to not see what importance he carries in his godfather's eyes. Jiraiya feels he has a lifetime of mistakes to make up for, and he can't let Naruto slip through his fingers before he has the chance.

So Naruto laughs boisterously, clapping a hand on the old man's shoulder in disguised reassurance, "My sense of direction isn't that bad, you old geezer! I'll find you; just go read your pervy old novels and try not to scare any young women! See ya!"

He hops out of the vehicle and into oncoming traffic, screaming and chuckling as he runs to rescue his princess, the knight in shining armor.

* * *

He checks beneath the bridge first and only finds trash, but he finds them at the abandoned gas-station, gathered together like a funeral procession. He can spot Neji, Tenten, Kiba, and a long pink-haired girl he's seen before but doesn't know the name of. And no Sakura.

"What do you want?" Tenten drones lifelessly without looking him in the eye. The fact that his sneakers are still stark white is enough proof that he's a stranger and does not belong here.

"Tenten," he says in earnest greeting and kneels, "Have you seen Sakura?"

He scans the faces of the others. Neji looks too strung-out for thought, draped over the brunette girl like a second skin. He catches Kiba's line of sight and the boy giggles and bounces on his knees. The other girl stares slack-jawed at another universe.

Tenten peers at him through scrutinizing eyes, eyebrows narrowed and lowered as her brain short-circuits. This boy is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. She reaches for him and lifts his oneofmany-newclean shirts to see the stomach underneath. He laughs as she pokes at concave hollow that's shrinking every day. Soon that stomach won't be a cave at all anymore.

"You're not dead, you dick-face," Tenten hisses, shoving him back on his butt, jostling Neji whose head falls into her lap, "Sakura told us you _died._"

Naruto looks at the confused faces of the people he considers to be friends, people who don't know whether to feel incredibly betrayed or incredibly relieved and asks, "Where is she? I need to find her. My godfather found me and he's taken me in to live with him. You guys can come, too! Come live with me and we can eat all we want whenever we want! We can sleep in beds with fluffy pillows!"

Tenten protectively tangles her fingers in Neji's overgrown mane, bares her teeth in aggression, having chosen resentment over joy.

"Conformist," Kiba spits, "You and Sakura both!"

He would save them all if he could. But he can't save those who don't want to let go of the devil's hand.

* * *

_A car pulls to their street corner and stops. After only a second's hesitation, a shivering Tenten gets in the passenger seat of the vehicle and it speeds away._

_Neji grumbles something unintelligibly insulting under his breath._

"_Where did she go?" Sakura asks, glancing from Neji to Naruto. Naruto puts an arm around her shoulders and taps his temple to hers._

"_To sell herself."_

* * *

**Sasuke**

The wind whistles in his ears, the sparkling lights swirling around him and exploding in his starry eyes. He's going to fall, he's going to fall, and...someone catches his hands, outstretched and their palms scrape together before he's launched into the air again, his back bowing until his knees are touching his cheeks and he's _spinningspinningspinning_ in the sky. The audience's roar sounds like fire in his head.

The swing drops down and he catches it in a single fist, legs arching into an arabesque. He allows his body to twist and bend, _it's his solo_, and then he's hanging by his ankle and the crowd is _roaring._ And it's over. It's over and he's still breathing.

* * *

_She squeezes her eyes shut tight, but nothing braces her for the ripping, stretching pain._

"_Shh, it's gonna be okay," Naruto whispers into her hair, brushing a finger over her lips to mute her whimpers. Tears spill down her cheeks and she sobs into his scraped knuckles._

"_I'm not ready," she cries unintelligibly. But it's too late for that, isn't it?_

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N: **After this, everything will be written from Sasuke's point of view and you will get his story. I wanted to put this chapter so that you would know what happened to Naruto and that he is looking for Sakura and...I like Kakashi. And I know it is unlike Naruto to give up, so I imagine that he will probably come back for Neji, Tenten, and Kiba (and idk, maybe Tayuya) after he finds Sakura.

Yesterday I watched the OVA whatever where Sasuke and Naruto fight and Sakura is crying over Naruto's inert form. I kind of hope that the ending of Naruto is in the same format, of flashbacks and the present intertwining. And while I can't imagine a happy ending, I hope they get one. I wish Sakura was more important to Kishimoto's plot.

Please review!

-MT


	9. seven

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Songs listened to: "Who Wants to Live Forever" by Breaking Benjamin and "Drones" by Jed Whedon and The Willing.

* * *

_Sasuke was supposed to be born a bird or a fairy or an angel, he thinks. But he can't get off the ground. He picks the wings off butterflies and rubs their magic dust on his arms._

_Then later he cries because the butterflies are dead but he isn't any closer to heaven._

* * *

**I don't expect you to understand.**

* * *

**Sasuke**

When Sasuke wakes up, it's because Itachi's stupid fish-obsessed friend, Kisame is pounding on the door before it's even sunrise. He doesn't have the consideration to keep a beat, when that Sasuke could sleep through. Instead it's an inconsistent _bamph-buh-bam-bamph!_ And even a deflating feather pillow isn't enough to drown out the noise.

"Shut up!" Sasuke calls, pressing his fists to his eyeballs, "I'll be out in a minute, god damn it!"

After the banging comes to a rest, he lies in the dim mustiness of his pull-out bed for just a moment, blinking up at the dust specks swarming in the light of the bedside lamp he forgot to turn off in his exhaustion the night before. He still has his costume on, and at this point the leotard is riding up in all the wrong places.

He groans quietly to himself and claws at his sheets until he's in a sitting position, and then he just listens to the sound of his own breathing for awhile.

_Bamph-bamph-buh-bam!_

"Hey! Sasuke!" Kisame calls through the door, rapping on it with his knuckles in a rhythmic fashion, "Your loving uncle requests an audience!"

Sasuke rolls his eyes under his uncomfortably lengthy black fringe. When was the last time he got his hair cut? Karin used to do that for him. _Ugh_,_ Karin._ He fingers the slightly oily ends as if contemplating what to do with them before just violently pushing it all away from his face so he can at least _see_.

He rips the door open and it bangs against the foot of the Murphy bed with a worrisome shudder, a habit he knows he should get rid of, judging by the large crack in the wooden frame. Kisame, looking bizarre and annoying as usual checks him over with a smirk.

"Have you started private performances in your trailer, Sasuke? Or just advertising them to lure innocent virgins into your- AGH!"

Sasuke slams the door in Kisame's face, tugs at the leotard in disgust, and gets to work on putting on something that doesn't pinch so awfully in the groin-area.

* * *

Madara is a foolish old man. The type who has tales to tell and secrets to share but can barely contain himself in his own wicked enthusiasm. Sasuke knows his uncle has enough baggage to hold over his head that he could plant his career six feet into the earth, but he also knows that as long as he does whatever the old man says, he won't have to suffer it.

So the usually impassive and unaffectionate Sasuke plants a kiss on his uncle's papery white cheek in greeting, lowers himself into a rickety, sagging chair, and settles his gaze on the blissfully puffing stick of incense resting on the cherry wood desk. It smells of ginger and tingles in his nostrils.

"Is Karin's replacement functioning well enough for you?" Madara asks, tapping his long-veined nails on the wood in an absentminded rhythm. He flicks through a pile of documents that say a lot without saying anything and pulls out a black and white headshot of the girl that grabs his hands long enough to flip him into the air. Her name is scribbled across the back of the picture in blue permanent marker. _Ino Yamanaka._

"She is perfectly adequate," Sasuke confirms, eyes roaming the photograph for faults. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl could be a model or an actress, her skin flawless and her personality loud-mouthed and sassy enough for show business. She'd like to be an acrobat, but for a reason he can't fathom, she immediately jumped at the chance to be Sasuke's barely noticed assistant. She stands and smiles in her sparkling leotard until Sasuke reaches for her hands, and then she sends him flying. This is not her calling.

"And Itachi...he is well?" asks Madara with a grin of twisted lips. Sasuke is the old man's favorite and he knows this. Madara did not have to bargain for Itachi. He simply received.

* * *

**Sakura**

In this town, the grass is white. Bristly. But still grass. It's still winter and the air is still cold, but it doesn't snow here in Suna. In this city, she can sleep on the subway train during the daytime and wander aimlessly at night. It suits her fine.

She's still not sure if she's made a mistake, leaving behind the familiarity of Oto. Sometimes something inside her likes to whisper over and over that Naruto is _gonegonegone_ and it's her fault. She gets scared and can't sleep for awhile and then she walks dreamily through the park for days at a time until she passes out from exhaustion. When the patrolmen find her, they leave her battered and bruised. Sometimes this gives her the motivation she needs to keep on going.

She's in Suna three weeks before she decides to move on to greener pastures. She's about to descend into the bowels of the city, get on that tram one final time and vanish when she sees him. She's walking past a newsstand and she thinks _maybepossibly_ it's Sai she sees vending today's paper. (It's a Sunday, the headline states, and she notes it absent mindedly.) He doesn't even really look like him, but he has the same slanted eyes and loveless expression that feels a little bit like home.

There's a pile of flyers that no one is bothering to spare a glance at, just lying there on the table. They look just like the one she keeps in her back pocket, the sheet of water-warped paper that weighs greater than lead. But the dates and location are different. She traces the curve of the flying stranger's spine with her little finger and whispers a _Thank you._

She knows her destination now. The circus has followed her here, maybe for some reason like _destiny_ or _fate_, and this may be a pipe-dream but does she have anything left to lose?

* * *

_MISS MARY MACK, MACK, MACK  
ALL DRESSED IN BLACK, BLACK, BLACK_

It smells like popcorn and musty hay. Like elephant droppings and smoke and bubbling grease traps that spawn the fried food that fathers try to juggle over their children's screaming heads. The white bristled grass crunches beneath Sakura's shoes and her stomach moans and bubbles with every hotdog on a stick she passes while the people around her gawk and glare at her, unsure if she's part of the attraction or if they should be wary.

She misses her pink wig. She wishes she could just pull it on and slink in through the back door with the help and not be looked at. She'd be like an undercover agent, wading through pools of strangers in disguise until she found her prize waiting for her, gleaming with welcome.

_WITH SILVER BUTTONS, BUTTONS, BUTTONS  
ALL DOWN HER BACK, BACK, BACK_

She waits in line with the mothers hugging babies and the lovers linking little fingers, who wrinkle their noses and cover their faces with their hands and scarves because maybe she smells bad or maybe people are just strange. When she gets the front of the line, she drops on the counter three nickels and a penny and the crumpled, ruined flyer she recovered from the alleyway when she decided she didn't want to be dead.

The person working the ticket booth seems tired and bored and reluctant. He has pineapple hair and it makes her smile just a little bit. Both his ears are pierced too, and she finds that to be a little bit relieving because she can't remember which ear is supposed to be the gay one. He looks over her items in a daze of incomprehension before he blinks himself awake.

_SHE ASKED HER MOTHER, MOTHER, MOTHER  
FOR FIFTY CENTS, CENTS, CENTS_

"Tickets are eleven dollars. Not...sixteen cents," he says pushing the penny back toward her with his index finger. He looks up at her grubby, wind-blistered face and doesn't even flinch. He just sort of contemplates her a little bit.

"I want to see the fairy boy fly," she rasps out through reluctant vocal chords. She can't remember the last time she spoke. Sometimes she whispers to herself, but that's only when it gets so quiet that she's not sure if she's real person or a solitary dot of light floating in solid darkness. Then patrolmen come around and...

The pineapple-headed boy smirks a little bit and rests his chin in his palms, "So does everybody else here. And they can pay."

_TO SEE THE ELEPHANT, ELEPHANT, ELEPHANT  
JUMP OVER THE FENCE, FENCE, FENCE_

She fishes through her pockets, hoping that maybe she's had a ten dollar bill floating around for the past three weeks and hasn't noticed it yet. She only comes up with a little bit of lint that catches on her bitten hangnails.

"Please?" she asks. Not pleading or begging. Just asking because she can't do anything else. And the ticket-taking man just sighs and rolls his eyes. And maybe because this is something like destiny or fate or maybe because this man can't think of a reason not to, he hands her a ticket with something like a smile. She doesn't thank him because her brain is whirring and she's confused because these underworld creatures that run this circus think she's a human being.

She shows her ticket to a round-faced boy with swirls tattooed on his cheeks and enters the giant, looming tent. The temperature change causes an involuntary shiver to run down her spine, and it continues to reverberate through her fingers and toes as she finds her seat somewhere near the back.

_IT JUMPED SO HIGH, HIGH, HIGH  
IT TOUCHED THE SKY, SKY, SKY_

Soon a redheaded man, studded with gleaming metal piercings and shrouded in a voluminous, billowing cloak of black is stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight. He smiles something sinister and the tingles continue.

"Ladies and gentlemen!"

A white-blonde man who looks somehow familiar even from this distance swallows swords like magic. A flock of acrobats glides like swans bathed in glitter, lacing fingers and parting lips to grin with blinding pearlescent teeth, the balls of their feet brushing and soothing the spines and ribs of their partners.

The elephants bow and scrape and behave like gentlemen, while the tigers prowl and roar and threaten like only professionals can.

Her heart catches in her throat when she the thinks she sees him. But no. He's so close, but he's not him. This man is a fire dancer. The way he twists his limbs around and through the flaming hoops, kicking and spinning and tangling...she feels as though she's in the presence of gods. Her fingertips twitch and itch to touch and stroke and learn through feeling, so she sits on her hands and grins like a child.

The lights dim and the crowd's single bodied undulating mass quiets its roar and settles into a whisper that sounds like the fire dancer's floor-brushing steps. The spotlight flickers to life and suddenly she's seeing him. Her fairy boy.

_AND DIDN'T COME BACK, BACK, BACK_  
'_TIL THE FOURTH OF JULY, JULY, JULY!_

* * *

**Sasuke**

When he strolls back to his trailer at the end of a long day, he is not alone. He opens his trailer door and there is a girl curled up on the floor in front of the cabinet that holds his hide-a-bed. She is long and frail and stringy-haired and she reminds him of his mother in the times when he wouldn't look at her.

"Hello," Sasuke greets her, standing in the doorway, waiting for something to happen. Her knees are pulled up to her chest and her clothes-pin arms seem to be the only thing holding her body from falling into tiny little pieces. He feels like maybe if he moves, her limbs will collapse.

She sticks her thumb to her mouth and gnaws on the end of the nail in the next few unsure moments. Then she murmurs into the bitten flesh at the quick, "Hello. Sorry. Hello."

"Hello," he says again. And then she stands up and her bones don't crumble into a pile at his feet, so then he feels like it's safe to add, "I'm Sasuke."

She takes a step and a half forward, and the fluorescent light bulbs of the street lamps outside illuminate her face the slightest little bit. He isn't sure if she has eyes. "Sakura."

* * *

_His older brother picks him up by his underarms. He's big and strong and almost everything Sasuke wishes he could be. But Itachi is no bird._

"_How's the view, little brother?"_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto

**A/N:** Hey, guys. I'm really sorry about the huge delay! I've been so freaking busy these past few weeks it's like there's not even breathing room. I stayed up after midnight the past two nights so that I could write this up since I had a lot of ideas saved up from daydreaming sessions during my English Comp lectures.

I'm not going to tell you guys what you should expect from me, because like a few of you might have figured out by now, I'm a mother trucking liar. (:

Please review! I really really appreciate it!

-MT


	10. eight

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

**A/N:** Ino is 20, Shikamaru is 18, Konan is 41, Itachi is 23, Kisame is 30, and Madara is in his early 70s. More ages to come, as I introduce people.

Songs listened to: "Ashes on Your Eyes" by Deb Talan and "Ghosting" by Mother Mother.

* * *

"_Sasuke, baby. Come here," says his mother. Her palms feel like wax paper against his cheeks, her lips like sand bones against his forehead._

_"Yeugh," Sasuke gargles, wiping invisible traces of saliva from his forehead, though a smile lingers at the corners of his mouth. Sasuke is a mama's boy._

* * *

**Maybe it's pity.**

* * *

Chapter Eight**  
**

**Sasuke**

They're green. Like glass marbles with a bullet hole going through them. The hole creates a vacuum when she steps back away from the light, and the black swallows the green until there's nothing but a tiny iridescent rim. Her blistered lower lip trembles and a tiny whimper escapes her pinched mouth. He raises a hand out to maybe touch her or gesture, but his intentions are lost.

"Sorry," she says again, backing up until she's bumping clumsy bones of shoulders and elbows against the cabinet, "Um."

_Careful,_ he tries to tell her. But the words don't come out. He feels like maybe he's stepped through a wormhole and into an alternate dimension. He looks back out the door and the circus grounds look exactly the same as they have the past two days.

"I don't know what you want-" he stops himself and tries again, "I don't know who you are."

She settles back on her haunches, twisting the joints of her fingers into the matted strings of her hair. She chews the wobbling lip between her teeth and he can barely see her. He shuts the door behind him so they are completely swallowed by darkness and his eyes can adjust.

"You're doing it wrong," says the girl, Sakura, the bitten lip tilting into a smile that's directed more toward herself than he, "You're not supposed to lock yourself in a room with the crazy girl."

"The crazy girl's not supposed to know she's crazy," he quips, and flicks on the light switch. The candied rainbow Christmas lights Karin strung up around the trailer explode into stardust, and the brittle boned phantom in his trailer bursts into bloom.

"You're a ghost," he says. Her gaze drops from the gumdrop bulbs and she grins.

* * *

Sasuke knocks on his uncle's trailer door, Sakura hunched behind him with her knuckles pressed into the hollows of her cheeks. The way she walks, exists, he's not sure if she realizes that she mirrors an abused animal with its tail between its legs. She migrates closer to him, orbits around his body in uncertain awkward spirals. He wonders where she came from and why she chose to cling to him in this mother duck routine. He is not the redemption she is looking for.

The old man opens the door, draped like a wilted stock of ivy over his cane.

"Uncle," Sasuke says in introduction, "This is Sakura. I found her in my trailer."

Sakura emerges from the shadows behind him and steps into the light streaming from the open doorway. She becomes something different. Still awkward and wounded, but unafraid and indomitable. She outstretches her hands like the fluttering wings of a heron losing it's balance, and almost stumbles into Madara's reciprocated gesture. She takes his membrane skin into both hands like a baby bird she can't release in fear that it might hop away.

"What brings you to my circus, and into the quarters of my nephew so late at night, Sakura?" he asks in a paper-thin sheen of understanding. And Sasuke wonders if Sakura can see that his uncle's eyes are those of a preying hawk.

"I came to see the fairy boy," she confesses in excited earnestness. Madara looks over her and stares at Sasuke, who presumes that he is the fairy boy. His leotard has the glittered wings emblazoned on the back, after all. He wishes he were wearing something else while he stands out in the cold, "And...and I saw your circus. I want to be part of it; I don't care how. Please."

Madara removes his hands from hers and grabs her by the chin, turning the facets of her skin to catch the light. She is grit and blisters and bones. A body exhumed from the grave.

"Sasuke?" Madara asks in mild amusement, and Sasuke immediately regrets where this is going, "What do you say?"

The old man releases Sakura and she turns around to look at him, her knobby fingers knotting the fabric at the hem of her sweater. She is looking at him, asking him to sell her soul to the devil. Her fate lives in hands.

He pulls her heart from her chest and hands it to his uncle. "Let her stay." It beats mournfully and desperately as Madara swallows it whole, and it vanishes into the devil's gullet.

* * *

**Sakura**

She shares a room with Ino now, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty queen. In purple footy pajamas. With little jumping sheep on them. But Sakura can't help but acknowledge that Ino still looks hot.

"Let me lay down some ground rules. You will not touch anything. You will not look at anything. You will not speak unless spoken to, and-" Ino declares, voice oozing with sardonic inflection until she bursts into giggles, "And you will not take anything I just said seriously. No, really. I'm kidding. Make yourself at home."

Ino throws herself back on her trundle bed, bounces an inch into the air, and sprawls out across the rumpled comforter. Lying on her back, she fishes through a mini fridge upside down for a few seconds, shoving aside a half-eaten bag of carrots and container of hummus before finding a bottle of Veg8able. Sakura was never very fond of tomato juice, back when she was still in high school with her much loved bottle of flavored water tucked inside her messenger bag. But she accepts the offered beverage with eager thirst, cranking the bottle open and letting its uncomfortable tang fill her nose and throat.

"I thought so," Ino continues, and after another moment's consideration, throws her the bag of carrots as well.

Sakura sits on the floor and munches quietly while Ino sings along with the radio, prancing around the room as she adjusts her belongings self-consciously. Her room is a palace of delicacy, lace and scarves and squash blossom jewelry curtained over thumbtacks and knobs and lamps. Only after Sakura has finished eating and her stomach hurts does Ino settle down again, draping herself decoratively over her bedpost.

"Okay, to tell you the truth, I know I said to make yourself at home, but...you're filthy. And I'm fine with sharing a room with you because you're like the size of my little toe, but you're in serious need of a bath," Ino says, fingering a clump of Sakura's hair, "And I'd actually suggest you cut all this off and start over."

"Um," says Sakura.

* * *

It's midnight and Sakura is in Konan's big brass tub. The water is lukewarm but soothing in its own right as Ino aids her in washing away three weeks worth of street life.

"I don't care if you're blind. There's just something wrong with a grown man being in the same room as a bathing child," says Ino, scrubbing furiously at Sakura's dirt-mottled skin. The fire dancer smiles lazily from his place in the corner, where he and Konan are linking fingers and meditating on the woman's pile of tasseled throw pillows.

"Ouch," Sakura grunts as her roommate's fingers get caught in a tangle of gnarls, "Itachi doesn't bother me."

Itachi is handsome in his crown of saltwater dipped crystals, with his face of hardened lines and freckles from a childhood of accidents. He is the kind of man that if she met him at a bar, she wouldn't mind a night of sinful dancing ending in nothing. She could forgive him for forgetting.

His lips twitch but he doesn't say anything.

Sakura braces her neck against the unyielding rim of the bathtub as Ino brings the scissors to her mane, a carpet of paper towels beneath her head to catch what can't be salvaged. She closes her eyes and remembers her mother, blonde-haired and almond-eyed.

_I'm home, _Sakura thinks to Tsunade, and hopes to God she can hear her.

* * *

_Fugaku is a fire breather, a dancer. He takes Itachi outside at dawn and twilight to practice and Sasuke wishes on them like stars._

_"You'll be like your father, someday," his momma promises, ruffling raven feather hair with her fingers. And even though it's exactly what he wants to hear, her sadness when she says it makes him scared.  
_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto. Also I don't own Miss Mary Mack from the last chapter. Whoops.

**A/N:** So, like, short short chapter, huh? It's like 1,400 words. Most chapters are in the 2,000 to 3,000 range, and I consider those short. So this is like, whack MT over the head with a laptop short, I guess. Anyway, a little Sasuke/Sakura interaction. I wrote this in between loads of laundry and dishes and math help from my mother during commercial breaks. I like Ino. I've been looking forward to writing her for a very very long time. I hope you like her, too. (Her opening meanness was sort of in reference to my story called **Somebody**...I was sort of making fun of myself, I guess.)

Anyway, thank you so much for your patience and your reviews! I very much appreciate it. Please give me your thoughts; they make my day.

-MT


	11. nine

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

**A/N:** Suigetsu is 22.

Songs listened to: "Comforting Sounds" by Mew and "Sleep Awake" by Mother Mother.

* * *

_Sasuke is a prodigy. He can fire dance, like Itachi and his father. He can breathe fire if he wants to, but he doesn't much enjoy the blisters that make his lips itch when he smiles. In fact, he doesn't much enjoy it at all.  
_

* * *

**Stop looking at me like that. STOP IT!**

* * *

It is morning, but there is no light streaming through the window. From the mattress on the floor, Sakura can see the cellophane fingers groping at the window pane. It's raining.

She's wearing a pair of Ino's footy pajamas, pale blue with smiling clouds. They're warm and fuzzy and soft and huge. The room smells of cinnamon spice, like the potpourri that sits in a heart shaped box on the nightstand. It's raining outside, but Sakura is not scared or cold.

She blinks up at beautiful Ino, traces her unblemished skin and blonde-translucent eyelashes. She is older than Sakura, she knows this. But Sakura wonders if maybe high school would have been bearable with someone like Ino by her side. Beautiful, bohemian, feminine. She is visual perfection. The flaws that are the dirt beneath her fingernails, the overbite, the colorless skin, bring humanity to her perfection. It is unfair, Sakura thinks. Unfair, unfair, _unfair._

She crawls out of the coziness of her blanket, stuffs her footied-feet into her tennis shoes and creeps out the door to feel the iciness of the rain soak her skin. There is no first drop, but a torrent of _dropdropdrop _that pelts her flesh and pounds her hair into her cheek bones and her clothes into her elbows and ribs and the caves at the backs of her knees. The ground squelches wet beneath her feet and she stops in the middle of the trailer yard, blinking away raindrop tears that try to roll into her eyeballs.

"What am I doing out here?" she asks herself. A little ways down the lot is Sasuke's trailer, and thoughts of _I-should-leave_ and _I've-made-a-mistake_ twist sickeningly in her stomach. The only reason she is still here at all is because Sasuke said she could stay. He grants her favor after favor, and she has no way of repaying him. And someday, when he asks her for the only something she's got, it will break her heart.

The sky is grey darkness and she reaches up to grab a cloud, to poke her finger through it for the sun to glow through, but she can't reach. The door creaks open behind her and she more senses Ino's appearance behind her than hears it.

"Sakura? Do you want breakfast?" Ino's do-re-mi voice is turned to static by the rain. Sakura turns around, and through the bad reception, Ino looks like her mother. Sakura rubs her wet eyes and squelches back to the trailer, leaving her muddy shoes beneath the steps when Ino gives her a maternal glare.

Food sounds too good to turn down. Sakura will make a decision later, when she has a full belly and maybe even something to weigh down her pockets. "What are we eating?" she asks in a shuddering voice, dripping _dropdropdrop_s on the floor.

* * *

They're eating cream of wheat, it turns out. With condensed milk. It's so sweet and warm and Sakura's favorite part is the lumps where the meal clumps together, though Ino eats around those parts. Sakura likes to chew them into nothing, feel the grain against her tongue.

"I left home at seventeen," Ino says, twirling a lock of sleep-creased hair around her finger, "It's funny the things you're willing to leave behind…and the things you're not. I filled my car with blankets and clothes, of course, and mace and a baseball bat. I left behind my giant teddy bear, but I brought my hand-crafted music box and somehow found my way here."

Sakura lowers her head closer to her bowl so that she's only breathing sweet steam. It feels hot and pleasant against her face. Her hair is still wet, but Ino gave her a sweater and a pair of sweatpants and a comfy quilt to keep her warm. She wants to go back to sleep now.

"…So," Ino continues, "What did you refuse to leave behind?"

* * *

The morning Sakura left home, the weather forecast was partly cloudy, temperature in the low-70s, but the house felt much warmer. Sakura had attempted suicide the night before, ripped apart the bathroom cabinet in search of Shizune's old sleeping pills. She drank a lot of vodka and swallowed almost enough pills. Then she passed out in her bed after throwing up a few times, spending the remainder of the night plagued with violent nightmares.

She woke with her sheets twisted around her legs in a cocoon of overbearing warmth and she kicked them violently off her bed. It was a Monday, 11:06 am. The first morning since she dropped out of high school that her mother didn't bother trying to get her up before she went to work. Shizune was off to college, a pre-med student. Sakura was alone.

She left the window open overnight and there were men outside, mowing the neighbor's lawn. And at that moment the cloudy morning, the smell of grass clippings wafting into her bedroom, and the feeling of abandonment made Sakura remember being very small. She remembered how she used to take the blue game piece from the Chutes and Ladders box, go outside with a blanket, curl up in the dirt and play make-believe. She was the fairy queen, and her father's blue character was her king. Then Dan died and she stopped playing make-believe.

_Get up?_ In the band T-shirt and the pair of athletics shorts she slept in, she wandered into her mother's room and reached around clumsily for the game board on the top shelf of the closet. In her clumsiness, she knocked it down and the pieces scattered across the carpet. Inexplicably, she started to cry.

The phone rang. Sakura didn't answer it. It didn't matter; it was the cable company trying to get Tsunade to pay the bill. Tsunade was miles away, inspecting tonsils at the pediatrician's office she worked in. Shizune was taking a test, scratching out the answer to number four with a dying pen.

And Sakura was crumpled into a ball on the closet floor, inhaling the smell of leather shoes and beaded purses, dust and mothballs and coats from thrift shops. And then she tore it apart.

Later she woke again in her mother's bed, curled up in the sweet-pea scented blankets. She got up, pulled on a pair of jeans and some tennis shoes, and then scoured the sea of ruined belongings on Tsunade's floor until she found the blue game piece again. She stuffed it in her pocket, wrote an _I'M SORRY_ on the mirror, grabbed a wad of cash, and left the house without looking back.

* * *

"I didn't bring anything with me," Sakura says.

* * *

**Sasuke**

Sasuke wakes up. Today it's not to an unrelenting fist against his door, but to the tremble of thunder shuddering through the earth. His heartbeat thrums heavily in his chest from the combination of his nightmare and abrupt awakening, and he lets out a growl of frustration when he goes for the blinds but can't open them with hands that won't stop shaking.

He shoves his sleep-greased hair away from his forehead and cheeks and presses his face into his knees, breathing the smell of his flesh. Tuff Skin and dirt and fabric softener.

He growls a combination of a roar and an agonized sob into his bones. It was so vivid, the acrylic of her nails etching promises into his shoulder blades, the ruby flesh of her lips easing pains with the gentle brush of skin against skin. He digs his own nails into the meat of his calves and relishes in the grief that spills red.

Then he carries out his daily routine just like always, reassembling his emotions through the comfort of pattern.

* * *

They congregate sometime early morning, called together in the big tent by Madara so everyone can meet Sakura, who has depressingly few talents beyond surviving. Madara introduces her by asking who needs help, and the only taker is Jugo who could use an extra hand with the animals.

"This is Sakura, your new stable girl," the old man says, guiding her out before them. She looks better, cleaner. More real in the light. But if Sasuke had to compare her to something, it would be a fish drowning in oxygen, "She's a friend of Sasuke's, so be hospitable."

The sound of his own name startles him, but it only captures brief glances of interest before everyone is back to sizing up the new girl.

"Hey, baby. Have we met before?" Suigetsu asks, eyes roaming her shapeless figure in search of the key to her familiarity. And then Sakura does that thing she does, where she becomes different. Instead of a gaping, pigeon toed scarecrow, she is a grunge-chic runway model with slanted camouflage eyes and pouting lilac lips. Her faults become lucky charms.

"I don't think so," she promises to his razor wire teeth, but bites her lip in a memory, "I'd remember a handsome face like yours."

Sasuke turns away to leave Suigetsu to his flirting, and Itachi is standing directly behind him. It startles him almost enough to make him jump, "A friend, huh?"

Despite Itachi's frustratingly quiet grace, he still manages to put his sweatshirt on inside-out. Sasuke can't help the slight smile that forms at the corner of his lips, and jokes in his usual deadpan manner, "We go way back."

"I'm sure you do." Itachi reaches his hand out to ruffle his brother's hair and Sasuke ducks into it when his aim is a little off, accompanying it with a groan of annoyance for the sake of appearance. Itachi won't know the difference. Probably. Sasuke doesn't actually know.

"Prepare to open in two hours," Madara announces when he realizes the disinterested are beginning to make their way toward the exit.

Sasuke glances back over to Sakura, who is reverting back to her awkward self now that Suigetsu has wandered away. He feels obligated to say something to her, to welcome her to the team. But he's not that kind of guy, so he doesn't.

"You want to make a grocery run?" Sasuke asks. Making a grocery run entails borrowing Jugo's truck and stopping by a convenience store to pick up pizza bagels and energy drinks for the lot of them. If any real groceries are to be bought, it'll be done by Konan, Ino, or Pein.

Itachi gives a half-hearted shrug, "I'll get Kisame."

* * *

Sasuke likes to drive with the heater off and the windows down. The air is bitingly cold and Kisame grouches the whole way, only minimally appeased by permission to control the radio station. Unfortunately, this annoys both Itachi and Sasuke, as Kisame prefers rap and R&B while the brothers prefer oldies stations.

Itachi enjoys a cigarette, blowing smoke rings in Kisame's frowning face. "You're a fucking bitch," Kisame growls.

He tries to punch Itachi in the shoulder, but is thwarted when Itachi grabs him in an uncomfortable headlock and he ends up with another face full of smoke.

"Bitch," Kisame grumbles again, untangling himself from Itachi's limbs.

"Uh-huh," Itachi responds dryly, taking another drag from the cigarette before dropping it out the window. Sasuke rolls his eyes and pulls into the service station parking lot.

Kisame goes for straight for the slushies and Itachi vanishes into the liquor corner, leaving Sasuke to gather pretzels and spicy cheese puffs and a few cases of energy drinks for the rest of the guys, piling them into his arms. As much as he enjoys being away from camp, service stations are not his favorite places. He'd prefer to maybe go to a movie or watch a basketball game. But there's not time for that.

Eventually after a lot of impatient foot-tapping and flashing apologetic looks to the half asleep cashier, Kisame and Itachi finally show up to drop their hoarded treasures on the counter, sharing snorts of muffled laughter and elbows to the ribs.

Then Kisame clears his throat and gives a flirtatious smile (that wouldn't be charming even if he wasn't very nearly peeing himself with repressed laughs) to the woman behind the counter. She raises an eyebrow at him and begins scanning the additional items and putting them in plastic bags, obviously uninterested.

"To the get away car!" Kisame shouts suddenly, running out to the truck as soon as his items are safely back in his hands. Sasuke shoots Itachi a look he can't see and follows after his older brother's stupid friend. Itachi only looks entirely too pleased as he trails along beside him at a leisurely pace, his cane tapping out the path before him.

On the drive back, Kisame takes a large gulp of his slushie and lets out an exaggerated sigh of contentment, "Yeah, I'm so glad I bought this. It tastes like blue futuristic good." He controls the steering wheel with his knees as holds his drink with one hand and beef jerky with the other.

"What the hell were you guys laughing at in there, anyway?" Sasuke grumps, unhappy with having to sit in the middle, all the groceries crammed around his feet while has to play keep-away with the brake and accelerator to prevent them from crashing.

"Yup. Worth all the mess," Kisame continues, throwing his beef jerky wrapper out the window and resuming driving with one hand. Itachi smirks and rolls his empty eyes.

"Whatever," Sasuke grumbles.

* * *

"_I always sort of hoped you would be a trapeze artist, like your mother," Mikoto whispers into his hair, wrapping him up in her arms. He may be a prodigy, but he's still her baby._

"_Trapeze is for girls," Sasuke laughs, even though it hurts his mother's feelings. He has to, because Fugaku is watching._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** Ughhh. I'm still not sure what I think of this chapter. I spent long grueling hours over this. I had to fight the writer's block! I BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF IT. It got a good few hits in. I'm going to stop talking about this, I'm a creep. I'm sorry, I'm a bit hyper right now.

Also, something I've learned since college started: comma splices. Are not okay. WTF. I LOVE comma splices. Those grammar inventers need to shut up, because I'm gonna use comma splices until death do us part.

Thanks so much for the reviews! I appreciate them lots and lots!

Please review!

-MT


	12. ten

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku

Songs listened to: "I'm in Here" by Sia, "If I Apologized" by Josephine Cronholm and Ashley Slater, and "Childhood Memories, Shut Away" from the Evangelion soundtrack.

* * *

_Sasuke is nine when saltwater prisms begin to decorate their tiny home. His father hates them because they're girly and they glare in his eyes, but Sasuke likes the way they capture sunlight rainbows and he can live just a little bit in the sky._

* * *

**It's Valentine's Day and I no longer exist.**

* * *

Chapter Ten

Sakura curls up comfortably on her mattress, watching while Ino twirls around the room like a fairy godmother. She taps her magic wand to the bed, and the indigo fleece blankets Sakura's come accustomed to transform into slinky crimson silk, spilling over the edges like red wine ready for the tasting. Sakura imagines lying naked, twisted in the ruby sheets like a Botticelli statue where she could fall asleep and never ever need to wake up.

It's been a long day of hard work and long performances. There was some sort of discount on tickets that people drove in from out of town to take advantage of. The men were pensive and the women were irritable, and Sakura was thankful to be alone with the animals for the majority of the day.

"Up, up!" Ino flaps her arms and invisible wand at Sakura, shooing her into the corner where she'll be out of the way. Sakura tries to make herself small, not wanting to be on the receiving end of Ino's testiness that's been the prevalent emotion of the day. The trundle bed is reassembled into one form, and Sakura's dirty sheets are thrown into the hamper and shoved into the small closet.

Though Sakura is curious about what the heck Ino is doing, she simply stands and observes. Ino at work reminds her of Sai in the studio, measuring light beams and adjusting totem poles amongst fields of feathers. Then Sakura would be crucified and Sai would eat her alive. But Ino is sprinkling pink rose petals across the bed and materializing candles from nowhere, and Sakura knows it is not she who is going to be taken.

"Oh," Sakura finally nods in understanding, "Sex. Is today Valentine's Day?"

Ino laughs throatily, the cause of her irritability sexual frustration that is about to be sated. Sakura is no stranger to sex, but she can't remember ever _desiring_ it. There was never any pleasure involved.

Ino changes openly in front of Sakura, as she always does. The negligé she purchased for herself is violet lace and it fits her like possessive hands. Sakura watches enviously as her role model admires herself in the mirror, Where Sakura's chest is sunken teepees and blisters and puckered scars of abuse, Ino's breasts are firm and round and everything Sakura ever wanted for herself back in middle school when she would stay up late reading her mother's Cosmos.

But unlike what Sakura is used to, Ino removes all traces of make-up before sex. She can't understand it. She thought the point of this romantic crap was to force a day of love perfection?

"I hate to do this to you, Sakura, but you can't sleep in here tonight. We'd just do it in Shikamaru's trailer, but he bunks with Chouji…I know! Why don't you just crash there for the night? Chouji is totally asexual, so you don't have to worry about him pulling anything," Ino says, arranging herself over the blood red sheets the way Sakura dreamed she herself would, "Could you get Shikamaru for me, please?"

Sakura nods, because what else is she going to do?

The night is a mist of needles, pricking her cheeks and eczema-eaten knuckles. It was so sunny and very nearly warm that morning. She'd woken up and the sun rays had warmed her cheeks and set her skin on fire. She'd laughed and spun until she fell onto the greedy earth where the grass was so dead and desperate. Just as it eagerly devoured the sunshine, it absorbs the prickling mist like a starving child.

She knocks on Shikamaru's door and he answers, looking uncomfortable and in need of a good night's sleep he won't be getting. He and Ino will entwine in that rosebud bed, the thorny vines tangling them together and spilling their blood invisibly across the crimson sheets.

"Ino's waiting for you," Sakura says, imagining the rose petals between her fingers. The magic Ino bestowed them with might heal her.

Shikamaru smiles a little bit tentatively and his face starts to fade. His eyes and nose and lips are swallowed into nothing and she can do nothing but watch. He grabs the bouquet of lilies from the vase by the door and starts off toward his destination. And even though it is all very clichéd and has been done by every man and woman before them, Sakura wants to be pleased by the thought that maybe love isn't dead. But instead she's just scared.

* * *

Rather than bunking with Chouji, she opts to sleep with the animals so she can think and possibly cry. She's not used to living like a human being, and sometimes creeping away from all these people with the knowledge of propriety so thoroughly ingrained in their bones makes her feel less alone. Maybe she'll sleep with the bears. As long as they don't feel like wrestling.

But maybe she should just leave. First Suigetsu, then Kisame, and now Shikamaru. They're fading away. And if ghosts can haunt her _here_, this can't be home, can it? She's made a mistake. There's a place for her where bad things can't touch her, right? Where she won't feel scared or afraid?

The earth moves beneath her feet and clings to her shoes affectionately. She could do it. She could leave the comfort of fleece and color and return to vacant blankness, just for a little while until she found somewhere safe. She is strong and she can do it. Maybe…but…

When she is almost to the animal pens, she hears some muttering and then someone calls her name.

"Sakura!" she turns around and Kisame, Itachi, and Sasuke are standing there. It must've been Itachi who called out to her, "We're going to a movie. Do you want to come?"

Her heart and stomach turn into fluttering butterflies, tickling her cheeks pink. She thinks back to the magic rose petals, imagines Ino blessing her with wishes in her bliss. But then she looks at Itachi's walking stick and remembers again that she's so stupid, that Ino is no magic genie.

"Aw, don't invite her along. She's weird and nasty and she's been wearing those clothes for days," Kisame grouches, crossing his arms over his chest and turning to Sasuke expectantly. It's always Sasuke, and maybe it always will be. He's what anchors her here, what whispers in her mind as she tries to sleep that this _is_ home, and that she's a flower that just hasn't bloomed yet.

Kisame doesn't hurt her feelings. He just confuses her. If they're inviting her to make fun of her, then they should all be acting all nice and dumb and then do something to humiliate her when they've gotten her hopes up.

"You say that like I know what she's wearing," Itachi says and walks toward her, tapping out the path with his cane. It gently hits the toe of her sneaker and he stops.

She won't let them make fun of her. "I don't understand. You're blind and it's Valentine's Day. Why aren't you having sex with Konan?" Sakura demands, arms folded in front of her like a protective shield. They wont hurt her. They can't hurt her.

Sasuke coughs a laugh into his fist, but Kisame doesn't even bother muffling his flat out guffaws, "Never mind. I might like her after all."

Itachi's lips slant in an expression of slight annoyance, but eventually twitch into a small smile. Again, Sakura feels out of the loop and maybe kind of stupid. "What?"

* * *

They don't go to a movie theater, they go to a drive-in. Sakura went to a drive-in once a long, long time ago, she thinks. But when she tries to remember who took her, she only gets the vague impression of a woman who felt like home sitting beside her in the front seat of a shit-hole mobile home. She remembers the smell of a lit cigarette, the crunch of caramel covered popcorn between baby teeth that threatened to fall out. The people on screen were having sex, she thinks. She was four and she knew what sex was. She remembers giggling at this knowledge.

Sasuke parks backward so they can perch comfortably in the truck bed, looking out over the field of lovers lacing fingers and limbs under the cover of quilts. They're watching a silent black and white film and Sakura cannot for the life of her understand why Itachi would want to come. But he looks unperturbed, faintly smiling in his position against the hub of the car as he enjoys the soundtrack.

Sakura sits at the very edge of the truck bed, soaking in the sensations of her first real trip out with the guys. They _want_ her here. They asked her to come because they wanted to be around her. She absorbs the taste of the winter air in her mouth, the scratchy feel of the dirt and abandoned threads of hay beneath her fingers. The presence of Sasuke right behind her, watching the big screen with dimming eyes as the night gets older.

Sakura very much enjoys the simplicity of romance in old films. Coincidence and chemistry are the only magic ingredients required for everlasting love here, and somehow Sakura finds herself believing in that love without a doubt. Maybe it's the charm of knowing that this love story happened so long ago. Knowing that whatever happens in the end, the pain has been eased by time.

Time progresses and eventually Sasuke withdraws himself from the truck and wanders off somewhere. Sakura mourns his absence but does not pursue him because she wants so badly for the colonel and his mysterious lady to be reunited. Kisame narrates the film to Itachi quietly behind her, and this is the first time Sakura has ever seen the strange-looking man behave in earnest. It is the first time she can understand their friendship. Even though Kisame is often inconsiderate, even though he frequently does what he can to trip up Itachi in his moments of blind confusion…Kisame truly respects him.

* * *

He is tall and blonde, skin freckled with kisses from the sun. Sakura trips over herself, stumbling out of the back of the vehicle and onto the dirt ground beneath. She stutters out an excuse about needing to use the bathroom and Kisame laughs something insulting that she doesn't hear. She trails after the boy, air leaving her lungs in eager, desperate gasps.

"N-Na…" She tries to call out his name, but finds herself unable to speak it, slipping on words and the earth and almost collapsing.

Someone calls out a name, a pretty teenage girl with long brown hair and a charming smile, and the boy turns around to give her a wave. It is not Naruto. It is not Naruto, but…but God, so close…

Suddenly oxygen is returned, but too quickly and with a nostalgic burn and she feels dizzy. She puts a hand to her head and turns around, and Sasuke is there, leaning against the wooden pole of a streetlamp, smoking a cigarette. The smell of fire in the air is suddenly understandable, but the image of a tired, green-eyed woman with stick-thin bones and no smiles is burned into her brain.

"Sasuke," she says, curling her arms around her ribs. She can't be hurt. She isn't…hurt…

But he is beautiful. Unfairly so, really. If he were to lose his face like the others, she thinks what she would regret losing the most would be his dusty-fringe eyelashes. They are not black like his hair. They are a deep grey color that reminds her of snowstorm nights, of staring out the window in the recliner, wrapped in Dan's arms while he'd breathe clove-oil smiles into her hair.

She steps toward him, not because she's feeling brave but because she is lost and sad and forgotten. And when he glares at her, his voice is almost a growl, "Stop following me."

* * *

**Sasuke**

He knows that this is what he wanted. To get out for a night and see a movie, to hang out with the guys and not just be out for the sake of being out. But not tonight. Not because it's Valentine's Day, but because tonight he is angry and he doesn't know why.

Hurting Sakura feels kind of like maiming a baby duckling. But it pisses him off how she watches him and follows him and treats him like he is her reason for living. Find a different reason, he wants to scream at her, to feel her brittle bones crack beneath his fingertips.

"It's because I want to repay you…for all you've done for me," she says, hiding her mouth behind bitten nails. He hates how when she's around the others she tries to make herself something different. Like a baby fawn or a preying lioness, depending on what she's hiding from. But with him, she's just that stupid baby duckling, following the Pied Piper to what she hopes is redemption. Maybe there's something in him she needs hiding from, too. And he hates that.

"Letting you join Akatsuki wasn't a favor. It doesn't need repaying, so leave me alone," he snarls, shoving away from the lamp pole, ready to get back to the car and watch the remainder of the film in an awkward, tense silence.

But she walks closer to him until she's invading his personal space and he can feel their precious body heat culminating between them. He'd step away but he's not one to back down. She smiles-frowns-smiles, her marble eyes glittering with wishes on shooting stars and says, "That's not the favor I was talking about."

Then she steps away, winter once again breathing between them, and she trots back to the car. He watches as her clothespin figure vanishes into the darkness beyond the streetlamp's halo, and suddenly he is not angry. He is alone.

* * *

_Mikoto ruffles her needle-bone fingers through the tufts of Sasuke's raven feather hair. He shoves them away even though he maybesortof likes it, because he's growing older and it's what he's supposed to do._

"_I love you, Sasuke," Mikoto says, and her breath smells like sickness. But Sasuke can see no evil, that blind son of a bitch._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** I dreamed last night that I updated this story four times in one day. Sorry that's not actually physically possible. I would have updated this on Thursday, but I didn't like the way the chapter was written and I rewrote the whole thing. I think this version is a little better. This chapter takes place two weeks after the previous, just so ya know.

BTW, thank you all so much for the really really wonderful reviews! I appreciate them so much, you don't even know. I actually reread them fifty billion times because they make me wanna write more so badly. Hahaha. I'm insane.

Please review!

-MT


	13. eleven

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless, SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "Your Ghost" by Kristin Hersh (and the version by Greg Laswell) and "Where the Road Meets the Sun" by Katie Herzig and Matthew Perryman Jones.

* * *

_Sasuke is supposed to be a star to be wished on between his father and Itachi. They're supposed to dance like supernovas and bring heaven down to earth._

_Sasuke should be happy. But maybe Itachi hears his silent prayers of _I don't like this help I don't like this_ because then he stares into the sun too long and his sky turns black._

* * *

**Don't think that just because your legs aren't moving, you aren't running.**

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Bed that night is the pile of beaded throw pillows on Konan's floor. They all get back sometime around midnight, the car ride quiet and sleepy and solemn with thoughts of lucky happy endings and the betrayal of real life. The lights are all on.

"Konan?" Itachi whispers, removing the layers of his invented hide and hanging them up with practiced precision. His belongings are the shadows in Konan's trailer of sunrise-tinted hues and he doesn't even know how perfectly he completes her.

"I'm here," Konan calls softly from the bathtub that smells of aromatherapy salts. She sees Sakura and smiles invitingly, the crows feet at the corners of her eyes deepening, "Have you come to borrow my big brass tub again, child?"

Sakura grins and shakes her head before walking on tiptoes to the side of the tub, dying her fingertips in the cold pink liquid. Konan tucks a choppy blonde curtain of hair behind Sakura's ear with raisin fingers, and Sakura realizes that the woman's aging body warps into something younger through the veil of rosewater. She wonders if that illusion is what Itachi feels when he maps her body with his lips.

"Itachi said I could spend the night since Ino and Shikamaru are having sex," Sakura says quietly, watching Itachi move methodically around the room. He lets the ripped wallpaper and oak wood grain guide him until he is lying alone in his boxers and a T-shirt at the edge of the bed.

"Did he?" Konan murmurs, leaning her cheek into the unyielding golden rim and closing her eyes for just a moment. Then she extracts herself from the water that turned her flesh into prunes while she waited for her lonely knight to return, and slides into bed beside him. The ochre sheets drink the water pearls from her skin, and Itachi's lips twitch, longing to do the same.

* * *

"Not tonight," a whisper rouses Sakura in the dark. She remains still because she does not know where she is and it might be somewhere near death.

She hears the quiet scrape of flesh brushing flesh, of lips melding with reluctant skin, and fingers stroking hair and promising safety. A foot dangles off the bed near Sakura's hiding place, and she can see the outline of it through the delusory shadows of night. The toes curl as if to smile through pain and she hears another whisper of, "I love you."

Konan sits up in bed and Sakura can make out the contour of her gypsy's body against the dandelion wall, "Not Valentine's Day, Itachi. I don't love you. I am not your mother."

Itachi lies in silence a moment before sitting up in dazed, halting motions. Impulsively, the shadow of Konan's arm reaches out to steady him, though darkness steals nothing from him. Sakura blinks her eyes open wider, willing them to become binoculars that can dissect the clasping of Itachi's hand around his lover's, a palm soothing the emotionally damaged flesh of a flank.

"No, you are not my mother," he promises, and kisses her with precision that can only be found by magnetism, and their shadows become one.

* * *

Konan wakes her up early to retrieve her very first paycheck. Madara's trailer is a river with tributaries of people trickling toward it, sifting through the sand for gold. She gets just over 640 dollars for her first two weeks of labor, a salary she definitely cannot argue with.

She stares down at the blue slip of paper in her hand with reverence. Once she takes the check to the bank, she will be holding more money than she's ever touched in her lifetime. 640 dollars could last her weeks, if she were to run away again. Unless she were robbed, which is a possibility. But maybe if she found a special hiding place that she could return to when she needed it…

"It seems like a lot of money, doesn't it?" Itachi asks over her shoulder, back hunched away from the cold, "It won't last long, though. Not with the shopping spree Konan and your little roommate are probably plotting to take you on."

Indeed, Ino and Konan are sharing a conspiratorial conversation that involves furtive glances in her direction, and a not-very-discreet examination of her attire. She would change clothes, she really would, but sometimes she just comes to love the certain feel of a specific sweater. The grain of pearling inside of worn sleeves against the crooks of her arms, the softness of aged denim against her bony calves, and the thought that this belonged to someone before her, a friend. It's all so very reassuring.

"Shopping spree?"

* * *

**Sasuke**

They've been in Suna for three weeks, and now they're moving on to Ame. It's the same routine every year. After Ame, they will go to Iwa, Konoha, and then Kumo. After that, they'll be done for the quarter and go their separate ways until October. Sasuke can feel time slipping through his fingers, and the more furiously he tries to grasp at it, the more elusive it seems.

They'll caravan north again, which means more cold and wet, which Sasuke has really had enough of. As much as he hates the thought of nearing the end of their tour, he is eager to reach Konoha and the April warmth it brings.

Today is unconventionally warm, but he knows the closer they get to Ame, the less pleasant the weather will become. The earth is still impressionable from yesterday's mist, the plants still clinging and hopeful, but the air is mostly dry. 60 degrees, the weather forecast says in the paper.

When they are through picking up their paychecks from Madara's tent, everyone files back into their cabinets in varying shades of pleasure. Sasuke himself has nothing to complain about. He is 19 years-old and makes 55,000 dollars a year. Madara would give him all he asked for and more if he thought his attentions would persuade Sasuke to relinquish control over his life. And as April draws nearer, the more Sasuke feels inclined to accept the long-standing offer.

Itachi approaches him as he is buckling the trailer on to the back of his car that he can barely comprehend is capable of carrying his weight, much less the weight of his living quarters. He prefers to ignore the vehicle's existence for the most part, as the inside smells like old people and whatever grows on them if you leave them alone for too long.

Itachi's cane bangs the front bumper of the car, and for a second Sasuke considers warning him about chipping the paint, but then decides he really couldn't care less. At home he has a different car, a nicer one that he can be an ass about all he wants. "Konan wants to take the imp shopping so she'll stop looking like we make her sleep in the animal pen. I'm going to see if I can find something to bring father when we return."

Sasuke can hear the implied invitation, but he's still feeling obstinate from yesterday. He spent last night sleeplessly, organizing and reorganizing his few worthless belongings, throwing away things that shouldn't feel important, but then running to retrieve them in short bouts of insanity. Anything to keep him from thinking or remembering.

"You want to spend the day carrying Konan's bags?" Sasuke snorts, pondering the invitation without acknowledging its presence.

Madara does not care much about who goes what route and makes what kind of stops along the way, as long as they are all on the designated campgrounds by that Tuesday morning and they can start the show. Sasuke usually spends this brief interlude stopping at gas stations to piss and smoke, or exploring libraries even though he doesn't have time to read. He does what he can to ensure he doesn't show up early enough to have to spend quality time with his uncle, without actually having to spend time with anyone else either.

But for the few months he and Karin were together, he actually enjoyed these small breaks. They would visit planetariums and he would teach her about infinity and counting stars. She would take him the best museums and show him how to find things in Picasso, even if they weren't the right things. His favorite were the visits to Moroccan and Vietnamese restaurants, where they'd order more than they could eat and nearly kill themselves trying. He can still taste the memory of licking spilt tajine from her fingertips, and the heartbreak that came afterward.

"Sasuke," Itachi says flatly and disapprovingly, as if he can read Sasuke's thoughts just from the sound of his silence. Maybe he can. Sasuke has always thought that maybe Itachi understands him more than he ever could. "Are you coming or not?"

* * *

They look kind of ridiculous, three trailers trying to figure out how to fit themselves in the mall parking lot. Suna doesn't have high ceilinged, emerald city malls. It has charming outlet malls that mostly sell children's shoes and chocolate and very rarely anything that anyone would need to buy.

Thankfully they find a thrift store that can appease Sakura, Konan, and Ino's needs, and not much at all that appeals to either Itachi or Sasuke. For some reason, Sasuke suspects this was the intended turn out, and decides to pass the time Itachi hoped he would spend socializing instead on staring blankly at a wall of children's toys.

He makes himself at home browsing a book of search and find games, finding that very few of them last more than a minute and a half to finish. By the time he's solved all fifteen puzzles of the first book, Ino and Konan have become distracted by some ugly sofa they both wish could fit in their trailers, and Sakura is standing beside where he is perched on the seat of a tricycle. She is staring at a box of Chutes and Ladders that is too high for her to reach, but that he could easily grab if he were to exert the effort.

She doesn't even look at him, probably because he told her not to. He wishes he could take back the night before, but he can't. He waits for her to ask for his help, but it's waiting for something that will never happen. After giving up her staring contest, she hides herself in a forest of men's sweaters to find one that smells right, and he loses his chance to not be selfish.

* * *

They stop at a Bigger Burger for lunch, and Sakura is the only one who doesn't order a salad and a diet soda. The establishment is dirty and questionable in its abidance to the health code, but impish Sakura, as Sasuke has come to realize, is a girl who has been violated and ripped apart and forced back together too many times to count. He wishes he were able to stop thinking and feeling. But he's got a game of Chutes and Ladders stowed in his backseat that tells otherwise. Where will she go when the tour is over and she has no home to return to?

"-Have you guys ever had Ino's cooking? It's the best," Sasuke catches the end of Sakura's prattling story-telling that she punctuates by stuffing fries into her mouth and washing them down with gulps of lemonade mixed with orangeade and Dr. Fizz.

"I thought she just thawed frozen lasagnas and pot pies," Itachi drawls after a moment, earning an elbow to the ribs from Ino, followed by a few insults and an _I do not!_

This is Sasuke's family, as much as he hates to admit it. And he'll sell his soul to the devil if it means keeping it away from his father.

* * *

**Sakura**

"Tomorrow we're going to make you look like a fire trucking model," Ino declares that night, an arm and a leg draped over the edge of the bed for the boogeyman to grab.

"What's tomorrow?" Sakura asks, pleasantly tired from the day's adventures. She has a portion of Ino's closet now filled with clothing that is hers, that _she _chose. The idea of more sends bubbles of excitement through her.

"Your makeover of course! You need the make-up and the hair to match the new outfits," Ino says, smiling. She looks happy and sated from the previous night, but exhausted from the lack of rest. Sakura can't imagine feeling good, much less up to a day full of activity after that.

"What does sex feel like? I mean, when _you_ do it," Sakura asks thoughtfully, though playfully pawing at Ino's twitching fingers like a kitten, "I've never had sex that felt good."

Ino rolls over onto her stomach, tucking her arms beneath her chest like a flipped-over mummy. In the dim light of the bedside lamp, her hair glows yellow like spun gold, and it spills so glamorously over her shoulders. Sakura fingers her own chopped up locks, and misses her pink wig. She doesn't want to resemble Ino, not when the other girl pulls it off so much better. Maybe tomorrow she can reclaim that image for herself.

Ino laughs uncomfortably and says, "You're like ten years-old; I don't wanna know that you're a little sexual deviant. But that's really unfortunate. Sex is like an explosion. In a good way. It's like a really good love explosion. But no more of that, now. Get ready for bed."

Sakura changes into her new pajamas, and then the lamp is off and they are in the dark. Sakura thinks that Ino is asleep, but she can't stop trying to imagine it. An explosion. She thinks of Naruto, of Sai, of the hundred other faceless men she let steal her body and fuck it into a painful oblivion. That didn't feel like an explosion. That felt like falling without relief and drowning on too much oxygen.

"Sakura…are you awake?" Ino asks after time has been eaten by night and Sakura has been half-devoured by memories of being used and left choking on her own air.

"Yes." Ino's sheets shift and slide over the edge of the bed, her traditional violet fleece having replaced the red satin. It pools over her body, and the little hairs on her arms rise up to meet it.

"Don't be sad. Somebody will love you, and they'll love you right," she whispers into the dark, lying bare-legged on her bed and tangling her fingers into the ends of her hair. Then after a moment of silent contemplation she rolls off and lands with a thump on top of Sakura, letting out a giggle and a snort and blowing a raspberry into her cheek, "Until then, I'll love you in a totally lesbo-free way, girl."

They link ankles and smile invisibly to each other, realizing the possibility of true friendship for the first time. Butterflies tickle Sakura's belly into a laugh, and she feels safe and not like running away.

* * *

"_Let me teach you, Sasuke," Mikoto pleads, her skin the color of dust and her eyes the quicksand traps hidden beneath, "Fly with Mommy."_

_Sasuke shakes his head, because that's what he's supposed to do while Fugaku is watching. But Itachi, who has been forgotten and is wilting under the weight of the world, claps his little brother on the back and whispers, "Fly, and tell me what you see."_

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** Yay! I did it! I really thought I wouldn't have time, but I actually got this finished before the 29th. Thank you guys so much for the reviews this past time around. They were really wonderful, and I'm so glad to know you're reading and enjoying.

Starting tomorrow and until December I'll be taking four college classes (three cooking prep and one psychology), and I don't know if I'll have much time to write at all. I'll do my best to keep up with updates, though. I really enjoy writing this.

Please review with your thoughts!

-MT


	14. twelve

Wind-Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "Rootless Tree" and "Waters of March" by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, and "Jet Sex" by Ghinzu.

* * *

_Sasuke is twelve when he meets Madara. The old man smells of fire and ginger and promises lies in the way he stands. He strokes Mikoto's paper-thin skin and laughs secretively, possessively. Without knowing it, Sasuke begins to hate._

"_Boy, how would you like to be famous?"_

* * *

**I've made a mistake. Can you save me?**

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Again, Sasuke does not sleep that night. They all check into a trailer lot, but Sasuke tosses and turns in his spider web sheets until he can no longer withstand their clinging folds' grip. Ghosts whisper in the darkness, but when he turns on the gumdrop lights, nobody is hidden in the rainbows.

"Mom, is that you?" he groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyeballs, waiting for reassurance but receiving none. He pulls on a hoodie over his thermals and slides his feet into a pair of rain boots, laughing to himself at the resemblance between he and his white trash counterparts he has always made fun of. By the time summer comes around, he will have forgotten his vendetta against wearers of socks with thongs, and will have become one of them, "I'm losing my mind."

He hopes to scrawl a note to leave on Konan's window, but the drawer is empty of everything but alligator clips, and he doesn't even know where those came from. He decides her reasoning skills will allow her to deduce his decision to travel on ahead, and does not worry.

When he climbs into the front seat, the board game he's began to regret buying bangs against his knee. It's weighed heavily on his mind, and that pisses him off. He knows the solution would be to either give it to the girl or throw it out, but he can't bring himself to do either just yet. Decisions are not his strong suit, though he will not acknowledge it.

The lamp in Ino's trailer goes off, and the window goes dark. See? He's lost his chance. If he were to give it to Sakura now, it would be an inconvenience. But still, he is rooted to the parking lot in the company of ghosts who whisper in his ears.

_Go back to sleep_, he tells himself. But then he grabs the board game and clambers back out of the car, intent on getting this weight out of his gut. He then finds himself stranded, unable to decide between the trash bins and the girls' sleeping quarters.

"You are really out of your mind," he reiterates to himself, climbing back into the car and throwing the game on the passenger seat where the pieces burst out of their box and scatter across the floor mat, where he will _leave them!_ Because he is fine!

* * *

As he encroaches on Ame territory, the reception goes bad and the radio will not settle on just one station; a '60s love ballad and a bluegrass tune about living the high life battle for dominance. In the end, static takes over, fizzling and cracking through his speakers until he pounds his knuckles into the power button. Rain wins out after all, leaving his ears bathed in more of the same ambience that sounds like getting lost between radio towers.

"Catch a falling star and…" Sasuke croons under his breath. There are no stars out tonight, not beneath the awning of grumbling storm clouds, but the song is looping in his head regardless. His mother used to warble it into the skin at his neck when he slept curled up beside her. Then when she could no longer keep her eyes open, he would peer at her between his lashes, memorizing the rise and fall of her hollowed chest and hum it back to her. He wonders if her ghost is listening.

The light turns green, but Sasuke does not remove his foot from the break pedal. A car behind him honks impatiently, but he stares vacantly into the darkness of 3:00 am, gripping the fabric of his sweatshirt and balling it up in his fists.

"Just keep going. You can do this," he reassures himself quietly. The car behind him honks again and Sasuke rolls down his window, throwing out his arm into the frozen rain to flip the driver the bird. He repeats again more loudly, "Just keep driving!"

The other vehicle pulls around him, shouting obscenities imperceptibly and vanishing down the street ahead. The light turns red again and Sasuke pounds his forehead into the steering wheel, ignoring the horn as it lets out a long, mournful cry. _Fuckfuckfuckfuck._

He just needs to sleep, that's all. He'll close his eyes, and when he wakes up he'll be able to think rationally. He will give Sakura the stupid board game and stumble through some form of an apology, and then he'll put on his costume and practice his routine as usual. He just needs to get back into the swing of things. He should have never let his habits become disrupted in the first place.

He pulls to the shoulder of the road, turning off the car completely and wrenching the keys from the ignition. Hopefully the vehicle is visible in the darkness and other drivers can avoid pulling a nosedive into his trailer.

"Catch a falling star and…" he mumbles. It doesn't matter. He isn't coming back. He is following the white rabbit, wherever it takes him.

The trees are compact thickets of briars that snag on his clothes and tug at his hair, groping at his flesh like needy beggars that could eat him alive, but he stumbles through them because he needs shelter from something besides the weather.

"Catch a falling star and-" Mud oozes through the sieve of his fingers, clumps of rock and snail shells clogging the drain and blotching his hands with brown lumps, "Something, something, something…Never let it fade away."

He's not sure how he got on the ground, but he decides to stay there.

* * *

**Sakura**

She kind of wishes Sasuke were still here, but maybe kind of not. Yesterday his irritation with her seemed to have lessened exponentially, but she doesn't want to push it. She wonders if when he sees her again, he'll suddenly realize. If everything will make sense.

It's not the exact same shade. It's a more natural color of pink, if such a thing is possible. It's a color that reminds her of flamingos and anemones and underbellies, but the stylist conditions it with something that smells of honeydew melons and causes it to curl under charmingly. Sakura is no longer afraid to look herself in the eye in front of a mirror. With Ino standing beside her, a sparkling grin brightening up the room, Sakura is not faceless. She is a real person.

"This color really brings out your inner youth," the hair stylist says in a naively flirtatious manner, teasing the locks with his fingertips, "And it makes your beautiful eyes shine like springtime."

Ino giggles into her knuckles and meets Sakura's eyes in the reflection. Sakura is blushing, and that makes her laugh more uncontrollably, snorting merrily and dabbing at the tears gathering in the corners of her lids.

"Yeah, you're a little springtime blossom," she bursts into full out guffaws, pulling Sakura up from the seat and shoving her playfully in the direction of the bathroom so she can change out of her smock, "Go get dressed, my little flower! We've still got lots to do!"

Lee draws a doe-eyed, smitten doodle of himself on the business card he gives to Sakura as she leaves, pleading, "Don't let another soul touch that head of hair! Don't forget about me, Sakura!" Then when the girls are safely outside of the establishment, they laugh so hard they fall into each other, nearly peeing themselves with unrestrained glee.

"He w-was, my…my FAVORITE!" Sakura squeals, half skipping to the car, throwing herself on the hood to wait for Konan and Itachi to finish in the candle and incense store nearby. Ino settles down beside her and rests her head on her shoulder, still giggling to herself and clutching her stomach.

"Oh man, Sakura. If you weren't ten years-old, I'd so take you out with Konan and me next time we go bar hopping. We could have the greatest time," she smiles, pinching the fabric at Sakura's flank.

Sakura is brought back to another time with another friend, a night of drinking and laughing and smiling and pink hair. One that ended in violence and true love and nightmares, just because she'd been too distracted to run when Tenten did. She wouldn't trade that night for anything.

"I want to make a phone call," Sakura says, suddenly serious, "Where can I find a phone?"

"There should be some payphones at the gas-station around the corner. Why? Who you gonna call?" Ino rifles through her purse, picking around lip balm and pennies, finding only one shiny quarter and depositing it in Sakura's hand.

It's been a year. Maybe even exactly, Sakura thinks. The cracks in the wet pavement suddenly seem incredibly enchanting, and Sakura can't seem bring herself to answer. Who does she need to call? Whose voice does she desperately need to hear now that she's human again? "My mother."

* * *

Ino stays behind, chilling on the hood of her Jeep while Sakura goes off on her grand adventure. The walk only helps to build anticipation and pull her nerves taut with anxiety. What will she say? What _can_ she say?

She has never used a payphone, and the instructions have been scratched off from years of nervous picking from customers. She supposes it's probably pretty self-explanatory, but with her brain skipping tracks like a tarnished record, the problem-solving area of her brain seems to be short circuiting. It takes five minutes for her to calm down enough to go through the motions necessary for placing a call.

It rings three agonizingly slow times before someone picks up. _"Yup?"_

It is not her mother. It is a man, and Sakura does not know any men, nor did Tsunade when Sakura was her daughter. Not since Dan. No, she couldn't bear the thought of it.

Sakura licks her lips and sucks in more breaths than she exhales, her hand trembling so that the cheap cord attaching the phone to the receiver rattles reverberations that echo back inside her head.

"_Hey, someone there or not?"_ Is he kind, at least? Sakura hopes he is kind. She gnaws at her freshly manicured nails, flecks of kiwi-colored polish clinging to her teeth and the bitten flesh. The grain of the brick wall meets her back as her knees give out beneath her.

"Ah, uh…Yes. Yes…Is Tsunade there?" she almost whispers, her voice failing. She thought she was ready for this. But she wasn't ready to know that life goes on without her. She is still just a child. A child who needs to know her mother still needs her.

"_No, but I'll take a message, alright? What's your name?"_ The phone beeps its warning of imminent disconnection, and Sakura's heart almost explodes in her chest.

What can she say in so little time and to a man she doesn't know? "Tell her I love her. I love her, okay?" she slurs in a panic. She is not ready. She must have more quarters, mustn't she? PLEASE INSERT MORE CHANGE.

"_Wait, is this who I think it is? Is this Sakura Haruno? Listen carefully, my name is Jiraiya-"_ the line clicks dead and the phone shakes until she cannot hold on anymore. It drops from her grip and hangs limply from the cord, swinging in abandonment.

She finds another quarter in her pocket. But she is not ready for more than just the end of a phone call. She is not ready for men named Jiraiya and mothers who aren't home, and she is not ready to listen or to wait. So she hangs the phone back in its cradle and buys herself a bottled soda. She needs the energy, because suddenly hers is all gone.

* * *

Ino doesn't ask about what happened, and Sakura doesn't tell her. They sit in the Jeep with a CD playing because the radio doesn't work for crap, but the sound of the rain nearly drowns it out anyway. Sakura pillows her head with her arm against the window and pretends to sleep so that the air doesn't feel so strained.

"Whoa, shit," Ino says, and Sakura blinks her eyes open as if awoken by the sudden blurt of speech, "Car trouble?"

Sasuke's trailer sits neglected on the side of the road, his car window down for rain to flood through. Konan pulls over behind it and Ino soon follows to investigate. Reluctant to remove herself from the warmth of the heater, Sakura lingers in the seat a moment before shoving the door open and flopping onto the curb.

"Ugh, I hate Ame," Ino grumbles as they trot up to Konan's side. Sakura has never been this far west before, and she would have to agree it is quite miserable. In the two hours since they entered Ame, the sky has been nothing but dreary overcast and watery bullets, "What's up?"

The trailer appears uninhabited, but Konan is unsurprised despite the fact that they are bordered for a mile on both sides by bald trees, "I'm going to check the woods. Ino, will you drive around and see if you can find any service-stations or anywhere else he might have gone to wait out the storm?"

Sakura peers into the darkness of the undergrowth. This place is even more miserable than Oto, like a watery graveyard. She asks, "Why would he go into the woods?"

The water seems to wash through Konan like a withering poltergeist it can't hold on to. The woman gives the abandoned trailer another reluctant once-over and sighs, "Sasuke isn't exactly known for his unwavering rational behavior."

"You coming with me?" Ino asks, clapping Sakura on the back. She is relieved to not be the one traipsing off into the mud and thickets. But misery has been a friend to Sakura for a long time, and if anyone knows how to wade through it, it is she. She shakes her head in response; she will go with Konan.

Besides, it's not raining that badly.

* * *

**Sasuke**

"Sasuke."

It is not cold. It is nothing. There is no sky, but there is a canopy of trees with pockmarks of dark bleeding through overhead. When he blinks, the diamonds on his eyelashes cling together, but he's too tired to rub them away.

Then something hot touches the side of his face and it _burns_. A strange sound bubbles from his lips, and he recognizes it as maybe words, but maybe not.

"Sasuke, honey. Can you say my name?" The heat flickers out but reappears as fire against his throat. He swallows into its feather-light pressure. _No. No. No! _An image of acrylic nails and ruby red lips and a smile, a smirk, tears and pain and his heart being ripped out and do you love me? Do you love me, Sasuke? _I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU_.

He whispers her name and then one of the diamonds falls from its resting place at the corner of his lid, slipping over the arch of his cheek and dissolving into his hairline.

"No, Sasuke," says the voice, persistent. _No, no, no, _"I'm Konan."

Konan pulls him up and the world twists, the canopy of dead brown bark morphing from brambles of branches to aching trunks and grey mud that still squelches between his fingers and bleeds beneath his nails in dirty crescents.

A pink flower blossoms in the middle of the graveyard. As he watches it, it uproots itself and crawls toward him, threading its nerve endings across his wrists and knuckles to give him back his life.

"Oh," he croaks, "I understand." And the girl he saved pays back the favor.

* * *

_That night Sasuke sleeps by his mother's side, listening to her breathe and cry in her sleep. He is too young and he needs to be rescued from evil. Help, help, help._

_Where is Fugaku?_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or "Catch a Falling Star."

**A/N:** I know, you're like WHAT? Because I said it would be awhile. But then yesterday inspiration struck and I ended up writing a whole chapter in one sitting. I decided to wait until today to post it just cuz it ended up that it actually sucked and needed a lot of revising. I'm still not sure if I'm at all happy with it?

I'm totally making this story up as I go along.

Oh! I also wanted to mention that my story **Somebody** has reached over 100,000 hits! How cool is that? (This one has 4,000...but we'll get there.)

Review? (:

-MT


	15. thirteen

Wind Up Dolls

Summary: A fairy boy and a nothing girl find each other. AU Homeless SasuSaku.

Songs listened to: "I Don't Feel it Anymore" by William Fitzsimmons & Priscilla Ahn and "Anywhere but Here" by SafetySuit.

* * *

_She is so lonely, despite her charms._

_"Meet your stepmother," Fugaku says, and Mikoto never stops crying._

_He is possessed by her ruby lips and cheeks that burst into bloom with each fragile posy smile. Fugaku will not look at her, but Sasuke will. He is thirteen and stupid and young, but old enough to make such a mistake._

* * *

**I don't want to remember.  
I don't want to forget!**

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

**Sasuke**

There's a moment where Sasuke is who he used to be, without anger or wretchedness. A moment where the delicate hand on his forehead is his mother's, and she is not sick or dying or dead.

But then Sasuke opens his eyes and the ceiling is too familiar. The smell is of sliced oranges and lavender incense, not of cake batter or powdered-sugar confections like his mother used to make. Sasuke remembers.

He pushes the hand away from his forehead, but holds it too long in his while he tries to remind himself what reality he is in.

"Are you okay?" Sakura asks, pink-haired and scared. And she is him in the alleyway, saving the damsel in distress.

He is in Itachi and Konan's bed, but they are not here. A paroxysm of guilt clenches in his gut because he is selfish and stupid but that will never change. Yesterday he died in the woods and a wildflower wished him back to life. _Selfish selfish selfish._

"Do you need a doctor?" she asks and winds her roots around his wrist again. No, she is not a wildflower. She is not a baby duckling or a wounded puppy. Nothing so innocent, nor so pure. Her green scale eyes betray her hidden secret.

They're alligators, dragging him down to the bottom of the lake, wrestling him into the sand until he is battered and broken and drowned. He can feel her breath, hot on his face, tickling and teasing his bangs against his cheeks and forehead.

This is a mistake. Her weedy bones disgust him. She thinks she can disguise them with a mop of cerise petals, but she can't, she's _disgusting._

An awful mistake. But lips slant and smooth and sooth and tongues tangle. Fingers grope promises into her bones. Are they his? _Gasp. Gasp._ He presses until he can feel her brittle bones creak, and the flesh burn hot beneath his touch, only for him. He grips until he can feel the capillaries burst and her heart crack and shudder and break.

This will mark the first of many libidinous ambuscades. She was his before even he knew it, he swears.

She tugs free, her eyelashes brushing gentle butterfly kisses across his cheek bone as she struggles away from his asphyxiating lips. Pearls of water from the lake she tried to drown him in bead upon his face, requesting regret, please. _Are you sorry, do you love me?_ They ask.

"I'm sorry," he answers, and kisses away her tears. The rest is a secret.

* * *

**Sakura**

She likes the hard work. Usually. But today all she wants is to be alone, like the days before. She doesn't get to be alone anymore, but she thought she'd never miss it. The animals are so much more easily understood than all these people who want to tear her apart and see what makes her tick, or bury their souls inside her while they try to remember how not to break. The zebras nuzzle her ribs and bump her calves with eager snouts, so thankful that she's here.

She settles in a pile of hay that smells of musty comfort, burying her hands in its warmth and splaying her fingertips to find needles. The animals are so sweet. They won't judge her for the bruises on her arms or the fissures in her heart _(and she's forgotten how to handle this pain)_.

Jugo is in charge of making sure the right animals are lead into the tent at the proper time, and she is in no mood for helping. She lets her eyes settle shut and hums a little tune to herself. _CATCH A FALLING STAR AND-_

"You'd remember a handsome face like mine." Suigetsu appears, perched on a large drum of feed, and maybe it's an interim between shows. She doesn't know. But she's seen those barbed-wire teeth graze knives and swords, that mischievous tongue dart out to lick away blood from nicks he's inflicted upon the flesh of his zealous fingers. This man who tried to steal her away one night on the dance floor has wickedness inside him. But maybe they all do.

"Did I say that?" she answers glibly, stripping individual threads of hay down to nothing. He has no face. Just a gaping hole of razorblades to steel herself against.

He cleans the dirt from beneath his fingernails with a pocketknife, considering for a few moments before he hops down from the feed drum and slinks over to her side, reclining fluidly beside her. She tries not to stiffen, not to frown or jerk away. He is in her world, not the other way around.

"You sure you wanna sit that close? I've got sticky fingers," she says, flicking a piece of hay in his direction and kicking her feet atop an overturned bucket, "Things have been known to go missing when I'm around."

He flicks the same piece of hay back at her, and it gets stranded somewhere in the web of her hair. She leaves it because she's sure there are another five-hundred glued to her sweater. "Yeah, I noticed that. So what'd you spend the money on?" he asks as though he isn't angry, like he's just mentioning a change in the abysmal weather.

A zebra whinnies and nudges Suigetsu away from its dinner, and his arm overlaps hers. He exudes no heat, and for once that is comforting. His barbed-wire teeth flash in a cheeky grin, and for a moment she is reminded of Naruto and all of his boyishness.

"Hookers," she says, and pretends as though nothing is happening, that goose-pimples are not forming beneath the fabric of her sweater. Suigetsu strokes the flank of the feeding zebra, and he looks content, like no one else she's ever met.

"Ah, yes, hookers. Good to know you spent my five dollars on something respectable," he says offhandedly, giving the beast a final pat on the ribs before pulling himself to a stand, "You seen Jugo? He owes me a rematch in Speed Storm."

Sakura does not the mourn his absence at her side, and finds that to be a good thing. Aloneness still sounds wonderful, and no sharp-toothed reflection of a boy she misses will ruin that. "I haven't seen him much today."

She presses her face into the starched bristles of the hay and inhales their scent, missing the shrug Suigetsu offers before he hops out of the carriage. He calls, "Must've been some ugly-ass hookers!"

She can still smile.

* * *

**Sasuke**

The covers are pulled over their heads, a flashlight cradled between them to illuminate the lesser known shadows and facets of their faces.

"Why did you come find me?" he asks quietly, entirely aware of the taste of each word upon his tongue. He isn't quite sure if he means joining their fucked up monster of a circus troop, or searching for him in the underbrush.

Sakura's smile is a barely concealed tremble at the corners of her mouth. Fears and regrets are hidden behind that tongue.

"There was this boy who loved me, and he died. I think," she says, and her confession is amplified by the silence of their cocoon. _Two peas in a pod_, his mother's voice whispers. The blankets breathe their breaths back at them to rattle inside their heads with choruses of forgiving and forgetting. But maybe neither can forget.

"You were homeless?" he asks, because he did not know that then, even if he does now. Maybe he should have, when it was so very clear. But at the time all he'd been thinking about was erasing the past, rescuing the damsel in distress because no one ever even tried to rescue him.

It was so terribly naive of him to think that he was saving her at all. What is it to try to save a broken glass from being ground into the dirt?

Her eyes drift closed because it's been a long day and his bed is softer than even he remembered. But he is not ready for her to slip away. He needs this suspension from reality, and he will always be selfish. Her breath that smells forever like stagnant sugar ghosts wafts across his face. She whispers, "For a year."

He tethers his fingers to hers around the flashlight and her eyelids whisk open again, struggling to stay that way. How many men have those eyes seen? He brushes those lids shut with the hand that is not holding her still in space and time. Then he turns the flashlight off and they both surrender. Ino will not miss her.

* * *

_"Your mother is a beautiful woman," she says wistfully as she tangles her fingers in her mane. Sasuke aches to touch it. It's been so long since a woman with any semblance of vitality has played a role in his life._

_"She is," he agrees, and then he and his stepmother make a mistake._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or "Catch a Falling Star." (I like that song; can you tell?)

**A/N:** Sorry this chapter is like the shortest freaking chapter in the whole freaking world. The shortest chapter so far. But this is a week's worth of hard writing. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote again because this thing was a serious steaming pile of crapwad and I ran out of words inside me. I hope they come back soon.

I might be proud of this chapter. Maybe?

Please review! (Come on, they kissed!_ And_ cuddled! That deserves a review, right?)

-MT


	16. fourteen

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Belispeak" by Purity Ring, "Painful Memories" from the Heavy Rain OST, and "Ljósið" by Olafur Arnalds.

* * *

_He lies in the darkness of his bedroom, sharing bodies with his father's new wife._

"_Do you love me, Sasuke?" she asks, her ink-black hair spilling over her shoulder as they gasp-gasp-gasp. He is stolen._

* * *

**Something inside of me is broken. I just thought you could fix me.**

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

When Sakura tries to sneak back into Ino's trailer at 4:30 that morning, Ino is already awake and eating breakfast. The smell is comforting and inviting to her rumbling gut. Nearly three weeks of Ino's cooking and Sakura doesn't think she could ever go back to scraping frozen burger remains from dumpsters.

Ino is not clad in her usual footy pajamas, but instead dressed in a slinky violet robe, her limbs draped over a half-conscious Shikamaru sitting beside her at the foot of her bed. "Right on time, bucko. I made omelets! But I forgot the cheese, so it's basically scrambled eggs with little ham cubes. If anyone asks though, I made some kick-ass omelets!"

Shikamaru rouses a little at the sound of Ino's exuberant voice, and he clears his throat at Sakura in greeting before he begins to dig in to the food on his abandoned plate. She can see the shadows of where the features in his face should be, the way he is illuminated from behind by Ino's lamp. Sometimes when he opens his mouth for a bite, a flicker of darkness flashes across the indistinct planes of his skin.

"I could go for a little midnight snack," Sakura smiles in greeting before helping herself to the remaining food in the pan. The yellow ceramic bowl is hers. She picked it out herself at the thrift store, and Ino left it out for her.

"Yeah, I figured you'd be hungry," Ino gives an insinuating laugh, "I wasn't sure you'd be back until later in the morning, but I'm glad I made extra just in case."

Sakura shrugs and sits cross-legged on her floor mattress, content to ignore Ino's suggestions of her night's activities and eat her breakfast in peace. She did not really mean to fall asleep in the coffin of blankets and confessions that she and Sasuke shared, but she cannot say that she regrets it. He is a beautiful boy.

Shikamaru places his aluminum plate to the side before leaning forward in search of what Sakura can only assume is supposed to be eye-contact with her.

"I don't know what's going on with you and Sasuke, and normally I wouldn't care, but Karin high-tailed it out of here because of something he did. Not that I'm not glad in some sense, because it brought Ino back into my life. But I thought I'd give you the obligatory warning, 'cuz she'd kick my ass if I didn't," Shikamaru says, but then reclines back on the bed in a sprawling position as quickly as his ever-weary body will allow.

Sakura remembers the girl on the bench, maroon-eyed with a bittersweet smile and a head full of regrets. _Time is bitter and boys are bitterer, don't you think?_ But she is too tired for contemplation of coincidence and fate.

Sakura misses Shikamaru's cherry-almond eyes and tentative smiles. She wants to like him because Ino loves him, but it's hard when her body is hardwired for distrust. It's the same with Suigetsu, but maybe her natural defense system against malevolent intent is wisely protecting her on that one. Suigetsu is not Naruto.

"Um," she replies and looks to Ino for something. Reassurance, maybe.

The blonde woman gives her an excited grin a double thumbs-up, so Sakura shrugs again and shovels a forkful of gummy eggs into her mouth. Delicious.

* * *

An hour later and Shikamaru is passed out with his head in Ino's bare-legged lap while the girls sit and daydream. Sakura observes quietly while Ino strokes the sleep-tousled locks atop her lover's crown. It's the first time she's ever seen him with his hair down, and in this light, in this moment, she can see. His eyes are sleeping crescents, his mouth a firm line of dreaming satisfaction, his nose aristocratic and cheekbones firm. He is lovely.

"Sasuke and I didn't sleep together. I mean we did, but we didn't have sex. We were just talking and I fell asleep at some point, and I guess he did too," Sakura explains quietly, soothed into confession by the lulling pattern of Ino's strokes. She is brought back to another time and place, when her mother loved her, when bath time was her favorite, and she could hear Dan crooning show tunes from the other room. And then it is not Tsunade's loving, grainy palms she's picturing.

She remembers staring up at the ceiling as a woman baptized her in the sink, the giggles that erupted from her little girl's throat. _Mommy, that tickles!_

"I didn't really think you did," Ino smiles tiredly and lets out a deep exhale of exhaustion. Maybe they're all tired, despite the daily faces they assemble, "But maybe I hoped it. That boy is _fine_ and I'd be all over that if Shikamaru hadn't come back into my life."

Sakura focuses her gaze on the cuticles of Shikamaru's toenails, traces them in thoughtlessness. She can't imagine Ino trapped within the confines of Sasuke's bone-snapping grip. That's not the kind of loving she needs.

"I don't really think he's your type," Sakura says, chewing away at the roundness of her lower lip. She longs for the warmth of his bed and the smell of his skin. This room is pulling too many memories to the surface, and she can feel more simmering just beneath.

Ino laughs and sags a little against the frame of her bed, but Shikamaru does not even stir within her shifting grasp, his head slipping to rest at the apex of her thighs. "Do I detect jealousy, dear Sakura?"

Sakura shakes her head furiously with an embarrassed grin as Ino giggles. She slinks beneath her covers and kicks at Ino's bed, "Nuh-uh! I just think you and Shikamaru are pretty perfect for each other is all…"

This abates Ino's chortles a little and she lets out a dreamy sigh, twisting a lock of tow-colored hair in her fingers. Sakura is not so envious of its perfect golden sheen now that her own hair is a vibrant flamingo-feather pink, and she can smile in earnest.

With rosy hair and a radiant grin, Tsunade probably couldn't even recognize her.

* * *

The bears grumble and grin in ease at her presence. Late morning, when she is alone but for the sounds of trickling water and the fusty odor of the cages, she is sure she is at home.

"I thought I'd find you here," Sasuke says, and she recognizes his voice immediately by the weary timbre and hinted promises, "You didn't stick around."

She entangles her fingers within the fur at the scruff of the smaller bear's throat, absorbing the warmth it exudes. Her fingers are frozen today. She has a job to do, and it's better she takes advantage of the comfort the animals provide than Sasuke, right? "I didn't want Ino to worry about me."

She turns around to look at him, and he is leaning cross-armed against a drum of feed like the one Suigetsu perched upon the day before. They seem to be the popular resting place.

"Did she?" he asks, and his eyes are red-rimmed and sunken from what looks to be a night of sleeplessness, but she knows otherwise. The minutes after she awoke, she held his slumbering form in her arms and let him listen to the fluttering of her hollow chest. Then she became nervous because she didn't know what was happening.

"I don't think so," Sakura replies uncomfortably, sagging against the plush side of the creature next to her. It growls contentedly and curls up on the floor, taking Sakura down a few feet with it, "She was with Shikamaru."

Sasuke watches with calculating eyes and a small something like a self-deprecating smirk forms at the corner of his lips. "I want you to play hooky with me today." It is not a question or even really an invitation. More like a confession.

She releases her animal companion and surveys the little work she's accomplished. She'd sacrifice her favorite part of the morning for Sasuke any day. "If you asked me I'd say yes," she promises. She has no sense of duty or responsibility; it's something that was ripped out of her maybe the day she lost her virginity. Maybe before then.

"Will you come with me today, Sakura?" he asks, and she doesn't think she's ever heard her name sound so delicious coming from another's lips. She takes his hand, though he does not offer it, and follows him straight into the mouth of hell.

* * *

**Sasuke**

The rain has everything smelling of dirt and it burns roughly somewhere deep in the cavity of his chest. They take his car, unhooked from his trailer. If Sakura notices the mildewed smell or the blanched seats, she does not mention it. He regrets leaving the windows rolled down in his brief stint of madness.

They don't drive far, only to the first public park he spots from cruising neighborhoods of lopsided brick houses and the imposing mansions littered far between. It is not a school playground, and that makes it fit enough for him. He doesn't need school principals chasing them off the lot.

It's nearly noon when he parks, halfway in two parking places. His is the only vehicle here and he is not concerned about parking tickets, especially not here in Ame. If he can abandon his vehicle on the side of the road for an entire night, a poor parking job is not going to do him in.

Both of their stomachs are grumbling, but he does not offer to grab them something to eat. He just forces the creaking door of his car open, the cold air quickly chilling them to the bone. He grabs a fleece blanket from the backseat and wraps it around Sakura's shoulders as she steps out into the cold. She gives him an inscrutable look as the rain plasters her hair to her forehead and delicate jaw.

"Where are we going?" she finally asks, but he does not answer. He only grabs her chilled fingers in his own. Since Karin's departure, it is a feeling he has missed but forgotten.

* * *

Beneath the shade of an awning, they watch the flooding river.

"A little girl drowned here three years ago," he says, watching the shadows of serpents beneath the gulch's surface. The blanket they share is sodden but keeps their heat within its cocoon, and that's about as much as he can ask for.

Sakura shifts closer to him, if only for warmth. She is shaking, but he does not regret taking her with him. She is keeping him from diving in after that little girl's ghost. "How long have you been with Madara's circus?" she asks, and maybe it's her turn after the night be fore's questionnaire.

He watches the diamond rivulets streak from her bangs into the dimples in her cheeks. Her mud puddle eyes are looking for that dead girl's body, seemingly expecting it to wash ashore. He can understand because he's done it so many times before. He replies quietly, "This is my sixth tour, I think."

She nods and falls silent, shivering beneath the weight of his gaze and the useless sheet. He kisses away a bead of water at her temple, a breath of hot air fanning the shell of her ear.

"Don't," she says, and it sounds like she's crying. He cannot tell, the way drops of wet already slip down the planes of her face so rapidly. She shakes her head, "Not unless you think you could love me. I don't want you to use me and throw me away. Not when I've finally found home."

He can feel her words grasping at the void of his stomach, but he doesn't know his answer. He traces the cadaverous contours of her body, letting the blanket fall loose from her form. His fingers flutter over the offending bones of her ribcage, the bowl of her hips, and she cringes away from his feather-light touch.

"I could love you, I think," he vows and kisses her again, squeezing until she snaps in two.

* * *

_Madara will never stop visiting._

"_Come with me, Sasuke," he begs. He's asking Sasuke to sell his soul to the devil while his mother lays dying._

_What Madara doesn't know is that his soul already lies in another devil's hands._

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

**A/N: **I'm upset. Eugh.

Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews last time. They were more than I could have ever imagined. You guys are really nice. I hope this chapter is better than last time.

-MT


	17. fifteen

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Love the Way You Lie" Skylar Grey/Eminem mash-up version and "Now the One You Once Loved is Leaving" by Lydia.

* * *

_The veins beneath his mother's pale flesh burst through the membranes like an unearthed tree. She will not last much longer._

"_I love you," she whispers._

_But no one is here. Not anymore._

* * *

**I want to feel your bones fall to dust.  
I love you I love you lots-  
-sorrysorrysorry...**

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

The reflection staring back at her in the mirror is not her. It's a budding flower that just drank its first drop of spring and it's blooming. The red rimmed eyes look like hers -sleep deprived, starved and desperate. But everything else is so new and buzzing with experience and replays and she's wired.

There are drip-drip-drops of red swirling the water pink in the toilet and she's smiling giddily because now she has a secret. She stuffs her polka dot panties with toilet paper and smiles and muffles screams into her knuckles, _she has a secret._

FLUSH.

The hot tap water runs clear over her frozen knuckles and stills the shaking trembles, and to take up time before she returns to Sasuke, she scrapes the dirt from beneath her fingernails and watches it vanish down the drain.

"Sakura?" he raps on the door and she turns the faucet off, heaving a grinning sigh.

"I'm coming," she calls, hiding her giddiness beneath layers of practiced ease. When she opens the door with a resounding screech, Sasuke offers her a cellophane-wrapped hoagie. Ham and cheese, which has always been her favorite. She gives him a smile and he gives her one back and life is perfect.

* * *

"Will we be in trouble?" she asks through a mouthful of the final bite of her sandwich, and she licks crumbs from her fingertips.

Her knees curled to her chest to conserve warmth, she watches Sasuke's expression while he drives. So intent on his destination, his brow is heavy with concentration through the torrent of wet falling from the sky. He hums a solid note of contemplation, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "I couldn't say."

She shudders and Sasuke responds immediately but without thought, cranking up the heater. With it on, the earlier aroma of mold has become twice as pungent. Sasuke hung a little pine tree air freshener on the rearview mirror, but she's not sure that it's helping. It spinning on its string and dancing when they dip into each pothole and for a minute she watches that instead of her maybe-boyfriend.

"Well…was it worth it?" she asks him _(yes, yes, it was worth it, it was- _and she hopes she's not staining his car seat red, because it doesn't seem like it can take anymore abuse). Sasuke is smiling even though the lines are still there between his eyebrows and it makes her giggle a little.

He shrugs one-sidedly and decides, "I guess it'll depend on the trouble." And she laughs some more even though it's not really funny, just because laughing feels good.

Unfurling her legs from her chest, something pokes uncomfortably into her thigh, and she reaches into the wedge between seats expecting lost change or a bottle cap, but pulls out something very different. It's not blue like maybe it should be, it's red. It's _hers_. It's not, but it is.

"What is this?" she asks, holding it up for him to see, for her to inspect. The two-dimensional plastic child is staring at her, dancing and waiting to climb to the very top of a ladder that is nowhere in sight. It's smiling so widely in a face-cracking grin and she almost finds herself mimicking it.

He glances at it for a moment but doesn't say anything until he pulls into the trailer lot and has the car in park. She's not looking at him or even really waiting for an answer, more just trying to figure out why she doesn't look like the figure in her hand like maybe she was supposed to.

Without the sounds of the road moving beneath them, it's just the static of rainfall and the metronome of the windshield wipers, lulling her into hiding within the recesses of her brain where she is mixed up in thoughts of _redredred _childhood and blood and _No Sakura, Daddy's not coming home _and Sakura playing alone, missing a piece of something vital.

Sasuke climbs out of the car without preamble and she listens for a minute while he messes with something in his trunk. When he comes back and closes the car door behind him, there is a water damaged box in his lap.

The box is familiar, but the wrinkled faces of the children have been washed away. She flips open the lid with shaking hands and Sasuke tosses it into the backseat without a word.

And there they are, the candy-colored remnants of her family, smiling up at her and waiting for her to gather them in her hands and whisper promises that she hasn't forgotten. She picks up the yellow symbol of her sister and the green of her mother who never really had time to play except on holidays, and then the blue_. No Sakura, Daddy's not coming home (but you've always been good at make believe)._

"I'm sorry," Sasuke whispers, but when he tries to catch her teardrops they slip through his fingers.

* * *

**Sasuke**

Ginger incense and damp wood are the primary scents of his uncle's fortress, the smoke thick and heady but always present. Sasuke sinks into the sagging chair that's been waiting for him since he woke up this morning without Sakura by his side, knowing that mistakes were being made (and that more were on the horizon).

Madara's withered fingers deposit a cup of coffee in his hands and Sasuke relishes in the warmth it offers, his clothes still wet and his quivering muscles desperate.

"A sprinkle of nutmeg?" the old man offers, holding up a small shaker. Sasuke shakes his head and takes a deep gulp of the contents of his mug, though it scalds his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He cringes at the chocolaty flavor of his uncle's favorite Viennese coffee and decides to just be satisfied with the heat radiated against his palms.

Madara sits tall in his self-appointed throne, setting his cup on a simple coaster. He begins by smiling behind interlaced fingers and asking, "So I take it this means that you haven't given any further thought to my rather generous offer?"

Sasuke purses his lips and swirls the clumps of instant coffee that have bobbed to the surface with a gentle motion of his hands. Consideration he has given plenty of, but he always has been an indecisive child. He grumbles, "I still have time unless you've changed your mind."

Madara pretends to keep busy by flipping through useless paperwork, and Sasuke catches glimpses of photographs of Ino, scrawled notes about the work of Sakura and Jugo. The old man raises his eyebrows in appraisal and asks innocently, "Have you done something that would warrant such a thing?"

Sasuke shrugs flippantly. "Well, I _did_ ignore the fact that we had a show today so that I could go on a date with my girlfriend." He sets his mug on the cherry wood desk, purposefully ignoring the coaster to its left.

Madara eyes this and gives a self-satisfied smile, following it with a gratuitous stretch and a sigh. "Ah, yes. That was rather surprising. I've never known you to abandon a routine when it's suited you so well. Tell me, how is Miss Haruno?"

Sasuke feels a twitch within him, a spasm of something vital like his lungs or his heart. Something in the old man's eyes hints at recollections of an inky haired ex-colleague of his that may have once attempted to spirit Sasuke away. _(I love you, Sasuke! Love you, love you, love you-)_ But Sasuke fills his head with thoughts of curdled milk and burnt out light bulbs to keep from thinking anymore.

"She's in danger of beating you out of this competition," he says quietly.

Danger, indeed.

* * *

**Sakura**

She does not expect Ino to be waiting when she returns to the trailer, but the blonde woman is sitting at the end of her bed, head bowed over a music box. A warped, but solemn tune weaves quietly through the air, a chipped ballerina spinning in wind-up circles.

Sakura stares at the red game piece in her hand for a moment before depositing it in the box next to the dancer as the music draws to a weary end. Ino closes the box, and the ballerina and the smiling girl fall to rest.

* * *

The hope of beginnings and endings has been pulled from her, and she is staring at nothing but dried blood and a mess. "It stopped," she calls from the water closet, "I started my period and it stopped."

Ino's shuffling, slipper-clad feet appear in the doorway left ajar, and she rests her cheek against the frame. "Lucky," she grunts, rolling her eyes. Her hair is clinging to her forehead with grease and a cluster of blackheads is forming in the crease at the side of her nose.

Sakura remembers opening her eyes to sugar-frosted starlight, sixteen and so scared and angry _(and what if she was pregnant?)_ because two months! Two months of abuse and endless fucking,but then three, four, five, six and finding out too soon that maybe she'd permanently wrecked her body with starvation and nevernevernever would she have her own little baby to baptize in the kitchen sink.

"You don't understand," she shakes her head as she pulls up her pants, flushing the toilet and stalking past Ino while frustration and disappointment threaten to bubble to the surface. She wants to get out of this tiny house _(she wants to see her family)_, maybe get back to work, back to the animal pens where they can feel her regrets and comfort her without judgment.

"Sakura, wait," Ino says, still sluggish and exhausted by the leeching properties of hormones, "Don't worry, this is probably normal."

_Normal?_ she thinks. What is normal about anything?

"After being so unhealthy your body probably just needs to reacclimatize itself or something. It's all that delicious home-cooking of mine, you know. Pretty soon you'll have me caddying you tampons every other day." She and Ino stare each other down in the sudden silence of the trailer, and Sakura _understands_ but she'd been so happy. She smiles because sometimes she has to, but Ino doesn't smile back.

There's a rapping of knuckles against the door.

"It's probably Sasuke," Sakura says, not moving to answer it. Ino nods but doesn't go for the door either. Then Sakura steps forward and pulls Ino into a hug, and she can't remember the last time she did such a thing. Maybe Naruto when he was sleeping, his blonde hair hanging in desperate curtains around his face while his breath puffed white echoes before her eyes. She misses him, and she can't ever let herself feel this way about anyone else. _Neverever_ again. "I don't want to become addicted to him."

Ino smells of hypoallergenic soap and her skin is soft like flower petals against her own. It's too late. Sakura is already tied, inextricably. These people have changed her life.

"I know, sweetheart," the blonde woman coos, and they turn the lights off and pretend they aren't home.

* * *

Ino's mp3 player is a mix of lullabies and pop songs and miscellaneous reminders of What Could Have Been, whatever that may be. By candle light, they paint each other's toenails, despite the fact that their pedicures from a few days before haven't so much as chipped. With tiny brushes they detail designs that are supposed to look like something, but end up looking like something or nothing else.

She needs this. They both need this.

Sakura's favorite thing about the trailer is how it is entirely Ino's: the violet lace curtains and the squash blossom necklaces thumb-tacked to the walls. After they've eaten frozen steak dinners and graham crackers, Ino takes the yellow-green-blue emblems of her childhood and slides them behind the glass of a stand up picture frame. One that, for the first time, Sakura notices has the model photograph still in it from when it was purchased.

"What are they?" Ino asks as she slides the velvet backing into place. When she sets the picture frame back on her nightstand, she drapes a salmon-colored scarf over it, the way it was before. Everything has its place.

Sakura laughs to herself, somehow finding humor in the situation because today is breathing life back into her. "They're game pieces, silly. Chutes and Ladders."

"No," Ino presses, sitting up in her bed to better view Sakura, "What are they to you? Because if they're _just_ game pieces, I'm taking the red one out of my music box."

Sakura shakes her head, tangling her fingers in the locks of her hair while she hesitates. Then she climbs into Ino's bed, despite there not being room. If Shikamaru can fit, so can she.

"I can't explain it…but they're all I have left of my family," she says into her knees, hiding her face in their raw-rubbed caps. And she can feel it inside, this building chorus of _take-me-home, I'm-ready_s. Being here, living with this family and actually functioning is filling her with a bravery she didn't know she had. She's not ready yet, but she can see it building on the horizon, preparing to eclipse the sun.

Ino nods and mimics Sakura's position, curling her legs to her chest. The way her supple skin, rouged and smooth, dimples from pressure and springs back into shape reminds Sakura of what she once was, what she can be again _(and maybe Ino was right; this is all normal)_.

Ino takes a deep breath and asks tentatively, as if doing so at all will cause this sleepover to end, "What happened when you called home?"

Sakura sighs and recalls the phone call that could have gone so much better if she hadn't been so scared. _Take me home._ She wants to be ready, but she isn't. "Nothing. But something will, next time."

The ceiling could use some glow in the dark stars, she decides. A solar system to help them sleep at night. If she could leave a little piece of herself behind for Ino, maybe they wouldn't miss each other too much when the time came for them to part.

* * *

_Sasuke's mother breathes her final breath and he isn't there. He can't face her desperate gasping cries as she vanishes into blackness._

_Instead he faces his stepmother and curls up inside her. He hides, spilling his grief and asking her to please, please keep his tears safe. She threads her fingers at the roots of his hair and tugs, tugs, and cries his tears back out because she isn't strong enough._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:**Um. I'm not sure what to say, really. I stopped taking my medication like three weeks ago and I haven't really felt the same since, and I guess I should start remembering to take it again. I don't think this chapter is very good. I think I suddenly rushed a few things. I don't know. Nothing makes sense.

For the people who are bothered by the thing between Sasuke and his stepmother, I imagine her as Fem!Orochimaru, if that helps. Maybe that makes it worse, I don't know. I just think it's necessary to explain why Sasuke is as confused and neurotic and violent as he sometimes is.

Thank you guys for the reviews, and I'm sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out. Mid-terms are soon and I don't know how soon I'll be able to update again. I think this story is almost over (I'm bad at predictions, but maybe 4 chapters left?) and that scares me because I'm not sure I have more stories inside me and I don't want to be finished.

-MT


	18. interlude 2

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Bad Romance" cover by Lissie and "When You Were Young" by William Fitzsimmons.

* * *

_Sasuke holds his mother's hand in the moments before they close the casket and take her away. Her skin feels like a waxen candle, absorbing the heat of his life to take with her into her rebirth._

_He hopes that in the next life, she can be a butterfly._

* * *

"**Our life is made by the death of others." -Leonardo da Vinci**

* * *

Interlude Two

**Naruto**

Naruto likes to get up early to watch the Saturday morning cartoons.

He and Hinata used to stand outside low-grade electronics stores in hopes that they might catch a few minutes of the classic slapstick comedy that children's TV shows are famous for. He'd zip his over-sized coat around the both of them and try not to be too aware of how the top of her head barely reached his collarbone or how she fit so perfectly against the hollow of his chest.

But things are different now. Hinata is dead, and Naruto has a roof over his head. When he's watching reruns of that show where one animal outsmarts the other one, he holds Tonton in his arms. The little piglet is actually pretty docile, though it is notorious for sticking its snout in people's ears when they fall asleep. Naruto is notorious for "accidentally" letting the pig into rooms where people are napping.

"Get up, brat. Help Tsunade with breakfast, will ya?" Jiraiya nags, swatting Naruto's rumpled hair with the morning newspaper as he passes behind the sofa on the way to the kitchen. Naruto gets up and follows him, blankets and Tonton in his arms. The good shows are over by ten, anyway.

"I'm not making breakfast," Tsunade grumbles, gulping down her early morning preference, sake. Naruto used to worry about bringing Sakura back to the home of a drunk, but in the month and a half that he and Jiraiya have stayed here, he's learned a few things. _(Don't leave the toilet seat up, don't investigate the noises in the guest room, and don't doubt Tsunade's capability.)_

The old hag is really something.

"Aww. Come on, Granny! We're staaarving, aren't we old man?" Naruto whines, throwing himself onto one of the kitchen's poorly upholstered chairs that Tsunade keeps griping at Jiraiya to fix.

Jiraiya pounds on the coffee maker twice before it starts to work, and then he lets out a long sigh of contentment. Steam flies from the machine while he taps his chin in thought. "Actually brat, I spoke with Kakashi this morning. He got permission to escort you to Rain Country."

Naruto screams, flying up from his new perch. Tonton, wrapped in a ball of blankets, drops to the ground and runs toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of squeals and sheets. "Whaaat? Wait! Tonton, wait for me! I have to get ready!"

He stumbles over his own legs on his way to the bedroom, throwing a sweatshirt and a pair of socks into a backpack, followed by a bar of soap and a toothbrush. What are people supposed to take with them on a journey this momentous? He isn't sure. He grabs ten dollars from Jiraiya's wallet, lying abandoned on the bedside table…He'll pay him back, of course.

"Juice boxes…" Naruto says to himself before running back to the kitchen, shoving things around in his bag to make sure there's room for plenty of snacks.

Then the doorbell rings and time stops.

The clock on the wall ceases its ticking, and the world imprints itself behind his eyeballs. Jiraiya's frozen stare wills Kakashi not to take his godson away, his face worn with gentle worry. Tsunade's sake glass is raised halfway to her lips in a sunken cheer, and she promises to her warped reflection that she won't get her hopes up.

Time starts again and Naruto blurts out something like a confession, "I'll bring her back, okay?" But the wrinkles in their faces don't smooth away.

* * *

Despite what Jiraiya says, Naruto's pretty sure Kakashi is old. His car, which is _not_ a police car for whatever reason, smells like fry grease and cigarettes, a smell he's come to associate with Jiraiya. Who is old. But the longer Naruto stays with these people, the more he begins to realize how irreversibly interconnected they all are. It's kind of creepy and gross, but Sakura is worth it.

"Hey, old man! Where's the cool cop car? I thought the point of having a police escort was to make people move out of the way?" he asks, twisting around in the backseat to get a better view of the scenery streaming by. The backseat is a mess of empty juice boxes, which is immediately Naruto's fault, but the TIME magazines certainly aren't. Though he did kind of enjoy the photographs of the topless African women… It all rattles around his legs and feet across the cushions.

Kakashi sighs and eyes him through the rearview mirror before repositioning it so Naruto is only seeing his own reflection. "They didn't give me permission to escort you. They weren't going to give me the time off either. So I quit."

Naruto stares at the back of Kakashi's head for a minute, examining the strained cord of muscle at his neck that leads into his hunched shoulders. For how highly Tsunade and Jiraiya both speak of him, Naruto couldn't help but expect a man who didn't look as though he'd jump at his own shadow.

He laughs a minute, moving around again so that he's lying sprawled across all three of the back seats and says, "That's not funny."

Kakashi laughs too, the low and throaty kind of chuckle that only old men do, and pulls the car to a stop. "No, it's not," he agrees. But it is anyway.

They're not anywhere near Rain Country, not yet. The weather is still clear, and they've only driven for about twenty minutes. They're in a residential area of small, but decent houses. Suburbia. Naruto can almost imagine Sakura living in neighborhood like this some day.

It was naïve, but he once imagined them all living happily in a home of white picket fences. If he closes his eyes, he can almost recall the daydream, the silhouette of Hinata looking out across the back lawn and the garden that blinked rainbows back at her. He would take her around the waist and kiss her, and Sakura would open the window to lay out a pie that smelled of boysenberry. At the back of his mind he would know that Kiba and Neji were playing videogames, that Tenten would draped across the second boy and cheering him on.

He never saved them.

"I don't know why you want to find Sakura so bad, but if you try to pull anything I'm gonna kick your ass, ex-cop or not," Naruto promises.

Kakashi nods and leans his face against the glass of the car window, "I wouldn't expect anything less of Minato's son."

* * *

_It is winter and he is fourteen years-old. They are all dead or gone, angry or tired, and Sasuke can't help but wonder if maybe he was a mistake. Sometimes he regrets all that he is._

_His uncle finds him standing on the pier at the edge of their estate, weights in his pockets whispering reminders that rest is just a jump away._

"_Sasuke," his uncle says without pause or anything like comfort, "Step away from there. I've come to take you to your destiny."_

* * *

**Kakashi**

Kakashi and Rin were college sweethearts. He can almost remember the night they met. It was at a bar, one whose name he can't remember but that he's sure she'd recall with perfect clarity if he were to ask. There was a song playing that highlighted his reckless mood, and he and Minato were slamming back shots. A celebration of the healthy baby Kushina had given birth to just a week before.

Rin had come in, looking bookish in a sexy sort of way. He said something about her ass and she said something that took his pride down a few pegs.

He hated her. He remembers that.

But what he hung onto from that night was the smell of her skin and the tone of her laugh, the way her doe eyes glittered like broken glass from the margaritas she sipped. Fairy lights reflected like stars in her gaze and maybe, beyond his hate, he felt love. He had to.

Because then a month later he was sitting outside. There was the sick squelch of mud beneath his shoes, like the earth was trying to pull him underground and choke him.

_Really, Kakashi? Skipping class? I thought you wanted to be an FBI agent or something._

And he was trying to eat a sandwich and it was raining. He wasn't hungry but he couldn't remember ever being hungry, not since he'd heard-

_Wait…are you crying?_

Not since he'd heard about the death of Minato and his wife.

And Rin had smelled like raspberries and baby powder and was so warm.

_Kakashi, don't…_

He'd kissed her, and held on until years later _(after fights and love making and dirty jokes and awkward dinners with parents and then a baby boy that grew into a life he couldn't fit)_ his son slipped through his fingers.

* * *

The house looks exactly the same as he left it.

The pineapple wind chime hanging above the door croons the same melancholy tune it did three years ago when Kakashi watched it from afar, the smell of grass clippings wafting through the car window that was open just a crack. He'd gasped forlornly against the cool glass and watched his breath muddy the view that looked so _wrong_ without Obito's toppled bicycle and abandoned basketball. Rin tried not to let him see her cry from the dining room window as his heart fell out his throat.

Three years and nothing has changed. The porch swing still groans with the aches of rotting wood and the air still smells of fresh cut grass. His breath again fogs the window just as the Earth continues to turn.

"Hey…you okay old man?" Naruto asks, righting his posture from its sprawled state to poke his head between the seats, "Where are we?"

Kakashi rubs the heels of his palms across his eyelids and mumbles something unintelligible in response. He's come this far. He can't turn back now.

The blonde kid leans further forward to catch the end of his sentence but is only able to catch a whisper of breath at the end of the last syllable. Kakashi motions for him to stay put before he heaves himself from the driver's seat and onto the cobblestone pathway.

He knocks on the door because an old memory tells him that the doorbell never worked, but when he eyes it with a sidelong glance, he realizes the entire doorway has been redone. The doorbell is shiny and new. No longer is the wood of the door a mahogany cherry wood, but instead a deep, similar jarrah.

It moves before his eyes, and is suddenly replaced with (Kakashi holds his breath, and then lets out a sigh of relief) Rin. Her hair is short, just how she kept it when they were young, framing her heart-shaped face in a way that betrays her age. They are not young anymore.

"Kakashi," she gasps, and her cheeks instantly mottle with purple-pink blotches of embarrassment or confusion. (_Kakashi, why are you looking at me like that? You pervert!)_ He realizes why when she fumbles with the pendant of her necklace, the one he gave her the morning after she told him she was having his child. _(Do you think we'll have a boy or a girl, Kakashi? I hope it's a boy. I think you were meant to have a son.)_

Too many seconds pass. A frigid wind that contradicts the warming air tickles the wind chime into song, and he can't help but smile just a little bit.

"Rin," he says and then stares, and then takes a breath and stares again, "I love you. I still love you."

She takes shelter in the shadow of the doorframe, leaning against it with the entirety of her weight. She keeps shaking her head, batting away his words that are trying to nest beneath her skin. "Kakashi, no. You can't do this. Not now." He steps closer and she tries to push him away. He catches her fingers, so slight and delicate against his own calloused flesh and forces her to listen.

"I messed up, so bad. I know that I'm not the only one who lost Obito, and I wasn't the only one who was hurting. You stayed so strong for me for so long and now I want to make it up to you, please. Come with me," he says and somehow no amount of rehearsing in front of the mirror could keep the dampness from his eyes or the trembling from his throat.

Her hands relax in his grip and she closes her eyes, but her shoulders vibrate with strain. "No."

He can see the expanse of mistakes behind him. The nights he drank away until the bottle was empty and he stumbled into bed. How she remained curled up along her own side of the mattress, waiting for him to tell her he missed her.

"Rin," he persists, not with words but with will. He can do this. He will find this girl, Sakura Haruno, and he will bring her home. With Rin by his side he can save her. He can save himself.

"Where?" she asks, keeping her eyes shut tightly, stepping over the threshold and into his arms. She's been waiting for this, waiting so long for him to ask her for help.

He breathes the smell of raspberries and baby powder and weaves his fingers into her silken hair, unthreading the tangles from its ends. Could it be? Is his world finally falling back together? "Come with me, and I'll show you."

* * *

_Sometimes when he's performing, he can feel her spirit beside him. Sometimes he thinks maybe his prayers were answered, maybe she was reborn into a bird or a butterfly and she took to the sky._

_All he has to do is wait, wait and fly, and someday he'll join her._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** I am so sorry for the MEGA LONG wait! And this isn't what you were even waiting for (I mean come on, there's not any Sasuke or Sakura or nothing!) but it's all I had in my head.

I recently got a job, so basically if I'm not at school or work, I'm asleep from exhaustion. So this was written a couple of sentences at a time, which is a really awful and slow way to write. Sasuke and Sakura should probably each have segments in here, but it would have taken another two weeks or so.

I'll try to have the next chapter out as soon as I can, I swear. I have the first 300 words written. Which isn't much, but it's better than nothing, I guess. Please bear with me!

-MT


	19. sixteen

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Disenchanted" by My Chemical Romance and "Hortur" by Picastro.

* * *

"_Do you ever wish that we'd gone with him? With Naruto?" Tenten asks, cradled in the arms of her lover. With their backs to the storm and their eyes closed, they can almost pretend they're just shivering in the dark._

* * *

**The world is falling down around us.**

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

Two weeks later.

"I've never...shot a gun," she says, pouring out of the front seat with lazy limbs. It's cold, but Sasuke has promised her that they're going somewhere warm, and she is wearing a T-shirt in anticipation. It's one of his, the collar tall and drooping over her slender shoulders, and it smells like him and it feels like him and she's never felt more comfortable in her own skin.

She hears him snort, followed by the sound of the locking mechanism finally sliding to place. He's been wrestling with it for a good ten minutes.

"That's not quite what I meant," he replies, and she practically throws herself from the front seat in an eager sense of wanting to see his accomplishment. She smiles brightly at his form standing proudly over the rusted trailer hook. "I kind of meant something...ah..."

"More romantic?" she asks with a teasing grin. His facial expression in response gives her the confirmation she needs, and she hops up to appreciate his no longer occupied hands. They're cold and red from battling with the icy metal, but she lets him rest them on her hips, tracing lazy circles with his thumbs. She pretends to think hard, and then adds, "I've never donated blood."

He rolls his eyes and guides her back to the car so they can get in. He doesn't open her car door for her, but such things are overrated, she thinks as she curls up into a ball.

"Then I guess we'll have to make a trip to the blood bank," he says, and starts up the ignition. The air was on high when he last turned off the vehicle, and it coughs a gust of frozen wind in their faces as it struggles to warm up.

Sakura squeals and seals the vent after the first puff of air hits her cheeks, and Sasuke almost laughs at her antics. She grins and decides, "Nonono, really. I'll be serious. I've never gone to an opera, or a ball game, or a rock concert...Okay, wait. I think I've been to an opera, maybe. School field trip? I dunno, I can't remember. But I remember seeing Madama Butterfly and asking a lot of questions."

Sasuke pauses for a moment and says, "I hate Madama Butterfly," and, "Put your seatbelt on."

* * *

Halfway through the day, they stop at a Chinese restaurant. The kind that usually people are content to order from and either have delivered or run in and pick up, but that nobody actually eats at. They order their food at the counter and wait for it to be prepared, before running back to eat it in the car.

"You never really eat anything exotic," Sasuke mentions, wiping the corners of his lips with a napkin, "Even though you always combine all the sodas in the machine."

Sakura smiles into her straw, taking a large gulp of something that tastes predominantly of root beer but isn't just that. "Why should I try something different when I already know what I like?"

He offers half a shrug and prods at his Hulatang with a plastic spoon, offering no counter argument. They're parked just outside the city limits where radio signals can once again be captured and Stevie Wonder is joyfully professing his love from the stereo. Sakura likes this side of Sasuke, the side that likes to listen to happy things and likes to try new things, and sometimes even likes to hold her hand.

She leans forward, crossing the space between them and propping herself up over their takeout containers, kissing him slowly, gently. Then she pulls away and laughs, breathing a gust of soy sauce in his face, "Hmm, I was expecting something spicier."

He gives her a lopsided smirk and deadpans, "I was expecting something sweeter." She just laughs again and leans back against the window, giving him space to finish his food. She's stuffed.

She observes with a kind of pride that the pair of Ino's pants she borrowed fit her with grace, without hanging low over the bones of her hips. She has gained countless pounds, and her stomach never hurts anymore. It's kind of wonderful.

"You seem happy," Sasuke observes, cracking open his fortune cookie just for the slip of paper inside. Sakura takes the bits of shortbread from his palm and shoves them in her mouth while he reads aloud, "Your adventure will soon be ending."

Her smile grows exponentially wider and she mumbles through a mouthful of chewed up cookie, "I am."

Suddenly thoughtful, Sasuke begins the process of stuffing their trash into the bag it came in, tying it shut and throwing it to the backseat to deal with on a later day. "It is, you know. Coming to an end. You know that, right?" he asks.

Her smile dissipates, and she shakes her head, "What? I thought- but we haven't donated blood yet."

He snorts, running his fingers through his feathery hair. His hand goes to the ignition and pauses before settling back in his lap. "That's not what I meant; the tour ends in five weeks. We stop in Konoha and Kumo, and then we're done. You don't have any plans, do you?"

She shakes her head slowly. The smile coming back softly like she's reached a secret conclusion when really she hasn't a clue. She says quietly, her tone reassuring and gentle because it's something she needs to sort out without him looking over her shoulder for answers, "Don't worry about it, Sasuke. Just drive."

He starts up the ignition and puts the car in gear, pulling out of the oh-so-scenic parking lot and back on the road. She knows he'll do his best to show her the world, but she's already seen more than she ever should've.

Konoha, she thinks. Home.

* * *

**Sasuke**

"You got anything pretty to wear?" he asks as he thumbs through the travel brochures next to the counter. They're stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break and bubble gum (and maybe cigarettes; he hasn't decided yet). Sakura is looking at outdated Valentine's Day knickknacks, flicking bobble heads and shaking snow globes full of confetti hearts.

"Hmm, kind of a passive aggressive remark, don't you think?" she asks, pausing her gaze on the cashier who just stares at her with uncomprehending eyes.

Sasuke feels a sudden frustration build up inside him at the lecherous cashier's beady eyes and he claps his hand ceremoniously against the counter to make the punk mind his gaze elsewhere. He grabs Sakura roughly by the arm, stating her clearly as his. As if grabbing her ass earlier weren't enough of a claim check.

Sakura waves one of the snow globes in Sasuke's face, and he watches cross eyed as the blob-faced lovers get sprinkled in pink glitter. "Ow," she says with a laugh, mistaking his grip as an accident.

He loosens his hold just enough that he doesn't feel her flesh protesting against the calluses of his fingers, and grabs the globe from her hand to slam it on the counter.

"This," Sasuke orders the cashier, forgetting the gum and the possibility of cigarettes, and then continues to Sakura, "That's not what I meant. You know you look hot in anything."

She frowns a little and paws pathetically at the hand around her humerus bone. "I look pretty," she whispers, glaring. The cashier clears his throat with discomfort and Sasuke rigidly hands over his petty cash.

When the kid offers him a receipt, he snatches it from him, stuffing it in his pocket, He hands the globe back to Sakura and begins to pull her out of there. "What?" he asks.

She follows stumblingly after him as he pulls her out the door, though she still eyes the display of gum and mints next to the register. "Nothing," she says, "I have a dress." And he's not sorry.

* * *

She looks through the handful of brochures he grabbed from the gas station, tossing the useless ones aside in relative silence. Tony Bennett's voice is the only thing keeping the tension at bay.

"What about this one," she asks halfheartedly, and briefly Sasuke is irritated that she could be upset even after he bought her that stupid present, "Some local band is playing at a park."

From the corner of his eye he can barely see her flat expression, backlit by the passenger window. He wills himself to get over his frustration and tries to ease back into the humor of before, "Is it a rock band?"

She shrugs and stares out the window, returning to silence. He counts to ten before pounding the power button on the stereo to silence.

"Are you angry with me?" he asks, clenching his jaw to keep his tone even, though his foot presses a little too hard against the accelerator pedal. Scenery flashes by unrecognizably, but Sakura doesn't comment on it.

She picks at her chosen brochure with her bitten fingernails, fraying the corners and crinkling the edges. He hopes it'll still be legible if they have to figure out a rendezvous. She finally sighs, "Maybe a little."

He grips the steering wheel a little bit more tightly, presses the accelerator a little bit harder until the withered car squeaks and rattles in protest. He eases up just slightly, but it's enough to let a little more of his frustration bleed through. "Why?" he asks.

She adjusts in her seat a little bit until she's looking at him, setting the brochure aside and picking up the snow globe, holding it in the air, "Why do you think?"

He glances at it and huffs, "Because I got you a _present?_"

She rolls her eyes, "No. Because you're acting weird."

He rolls his eyes back at her and starts slowing the car down so that he doesn't do something stupid, pulling to the shoulder of the road. Cars are blazing past now that they're out of Rain Country, "_I'm_ acting weird? I'm not the one who was making goo goo eyes at the fucking sales associate."

She grips the snow globe in both hands and the glitter swirls around above the lover's heads, flying into their faces. "I was making goo goo eyes? Yeah? When?"

Sasuke snatches it from her fingers and tosses it into the backseat to rest with the trash and deserted travel pamphlets. Sakura watches it sail through the air and sucks in through her teeth when it lands safely in a dip in the cushion, "Hey!"

"It doesn't fucking matter when, just don't do it again," he says practically spitting. She shrinks against the car door and pulls her knees to her chest, and for a moment his chest hurts. He thinks of Karin, sprawled across the floor with tears in her eyes and blood on her hands as she struggled to get away.

"Sorry," he says, "Sorry."

Then he unbuckles his seat belt and leans over, grabbing her gently by the shoulder and pulling her into a kiss, pecking the tip of her nose and the crease in her brow. _Sorry, sorry, sorry._

After a moment she kisses him back, shaking beneath his hands, and whispers, "It's okay."

* * *

**Sakura**

Sasuke calls a number on the brochure and finds out that it is a rock concert, which sends her into pointless giggles and puts a smile on his face. They change into the appropriate attire to get them in the mood, he into a band T-shirt so faded she can't make out the logo and a pair of skinny jeans that make her laugh and her cheeks heat up, and she into a velvet mini dress that Konan picked out for her.

"You look really beautiful," he says, and it makes her happy.

It's evening when they get there, but it takes them ages to find parking and to get in. Neither is old enough to buy a beer, and no one will let them have one anyway (once, Sakura would have offered to flash them her breasts, but that was another life), so they huddle together in a crowd of a hundred people, screaming a band name they don't know.

* * *

She can feel the music in her pulse, reverberating up through her feet and into her spine. With her arms above her head and her head tilted back, she can see nothing overhead, not even stars.

A warm arm settles around her waist, strong and dependable and she lets her head loll into the curve of its clavicle. Sasuke screams something in her ear but she cannot hear it, so she just laughs and laughs and dances against him, grinding her ass into his pelvis.

He lowers his mouth to her cheek, and with his lips press against the shell of her ear, its almost like she can hear his every word, even with the whisper of a breath that passes right through her.

_I kind of love you._

Her smile vanishes and she turns around to look at him, to see him in the flickering light of the strobes beaming from the stage. His black eyes are like a mirror, reflecting diamonds of color that might fool her into seeing emotion. Is it there, is it real? It flutters like butterfly wings between them, or maybe an electrical current.

"I love you!" she screams, but her voice is lost to the crowd.

* * *

She is laughing as they stumble back into the trailer. They are high, not off of drugs or booze, but the residual excitement that flows through their veins. It is a good feeling, this adrenaline. She thinks of calling Ino and telling her everything that happened, how the sweat had glistened on the guitarists skin, how she swears the vocalist looked her in the eye, and how Sasuke, so warm and so steady beside her had maybe sort of told her he loved her.

"It's late," Sasuke says, "She's probably asleep. We should go to bed, too."

Sakura nods and heads to the bathroom to wash her face and change her clothes.

Standing before the mirror, she can see something in her face that was never there before. In removing the candy-coating of her skin, the vibrant reds and pinks that turned her into some rouged doll, she has realized her own self.

"Sa-ku-ra," she says to her reflection.

* * *

**Sasuke**

The night has dimmed in a world away from them, birds flitting to the skies and filling the air with yearning caws. Within the dim full-color spectrum of Sasuke's room, their lungs are filling with silent anticipation.

He watches first as she removes her make-up and tries to avoid his gaze through the reflection of the mirror. The green turned to a startling seafoam beneath the sugar-frosted shadow upon her lids, but slowly the kohl lines around her lashes melt away into nothing. The rouge of her lips fades to a delicate salmon pink when she splashes away the remainder of her evening mask.

There is a fire in his belly, and it grows _biggerbiggerbigger _becoming a life of its own within every pore of his body until he can't hold on any longer.

The gasp that is forced from her faded pouting mouth sucks all oxygen away from him, her body pinned between the counter and himself before he even knows why.

"Sakura," his voice comes out unrecognizable, but its stranger's tone falls silent upon their deafened ears when he grabs at the fabric of her dress that feels like sin against his flesh. It is torn away along with the breath from her lungs, because _he is taking it back!_

Her body's velveteen cloak falls away, pooling in a broken halo around her feet where it lies in bunches. He is a man and she is young. Her child's skin, raw and bright, quivers beneath his massive hands.

"Sasuke," she whispers without a voice, and then he takes her.

* * *

**Sakura**

She is trying to sleep, but her eyelids are stretched wide open and gaping at the ceiling. Sasuke's weight is heavy and smothering across the expanse of her body, but something has broken inside her. She has long since loosened into a limp doll in his awkward grip, but nothing has abated the great throb of pain in each of her joints with every thump of her pulse. It is the only thing rooting her to consciousness.

She remembers her whimpers. The _please don't_s and the _stop, please_s.

"It hurts," she says to the darkness, but Sasuke doesn't so much as stir.

* * *

_The sun will continue to rise and set without regard for their wretched souls._

"_I'm so tired," Tenten cries. Neji holds her tighter, and Tayuya just looks on. There's no rest for people like them._

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: Happy 11/11/11! Okay, by the time you get to this, it'll be the twelfth (or later). But I made a wish. Did you?

I have a billion things I could say about this chapter, explaining my reasons for what I've done with the characters. But I think I'll save it for the end.

Don't expect the next chapter to come out soon. It was a fluke that this one came out so quickly. I don't have a single day off next week, nor like...ever again.

-MT


	20. seventeen

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" by Straylight Run, "Locke'd Out Again" from the Lost OST, and "Precious Hewie" from the Demento OST.

* * *

_When the sun rises, one life does not rise with it. Tayuya stares at the bloated star with a gaping grimace that never subsides, and it takes Tenten and Neji an hour to move her body to the dumpster behind the old gas station. It takes them less than a minute to leave her behind._

* * *

**T is for Tayuya who no one ever THOUGHT of.**

**For the TALENT she had. For how hard she TRIED. For her THANKLESS family who THREW her away. For all the times she had to fake TOUGH because that might keep her alive.**

**T is for TIRED and TROUBLED and TRAGIC.**

* * *

_**T is for TRUTH.**_

_**The truth is, she barely even mattered.**_

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

She cannot explain what it is that is inside her that morning. When the world wakes, the sun rises slowly over the springtime peaks of Konoha's trees. And when she emerges from the back of Sasuke's trailer, the light explodes upon her skin in warming orange rays. She was born in this town, and the beams of sun across her cheeks and shoulders feel like a welcome home chorus.

There are no thoughts of the night before in her head, though she has not slept a wink. She is naked, clad in just a mismatched but practical set of underwear with nothing but a book in her hand to pass the long hours until Sasuke wakes. She could have hoped for _Othello, _but _A Midsummer Night's Dream _will do.

She climbs on top of her lover's boxy home, up the ill-used ladder that gleams like bleached rib bones across the side. Sasuke was right. It is _warm_. She falls into the written world of romance in her hands as the daylight bakes the aroma of violent sex right out of her flesh. She does not feel a thing.

_So quick bright things come to confusion._

"Why are you naked?" calls the nasally voice of a child, hours later. She dog-ears a page corner and shuts the novel, glancing over her bare shoulder at the stranger behind her.

Only the boy's head and scrawny shoulders peek over the side of the vehicle, but she is certain he is dressed for the day, and she becomes suddenly aware of the world moving on around her. Life has continued. Families are emerging from their mobile homes and trailers, whistling tunes and packing bags, as unaware of her existence as she was of theirs.

Sakura laughs, cradling the book to her chest that is blooming with sunburn. "I'm not naked."

"Do want some clothes?" he asks, blushing a deep shade of scarlet. She shrugs and a set of clothing immediately pelts her in the side of the face, landing lightly beside her. "They're my mom's. She told me to apologize for staring at you."

Sakura blinks at the boy, noting the binoculars looped around his neck. He grins mischievously and says, "But I'm not going to. You're the crazy lady, sitting outside naked. S'not my fault."

Sakura tries her best not to smile as she holds a delicate hand to her faint heart. "PERVERT!" she shrieks, scrambling down the side of the trailer to the best of her ability without the ladder. She chuckles to herself as she hears the enraged screams of the boy's mother shouting _Konohamaru! Get your butt back here right now!_

"Hey, lady! That wasn't nice!" groans the kid, and he disappears with the fading crunch of tennis shoes on gravel. Her heart tugs. He reminds her so much of Naruto and the life he should have had.

* * *

**Sasuke**

He remembers hearing once that memory is most strongly linked to the sense of smell. He wakes up breathing the scent of Sakura, smiling into his pillow and struggling to recount the night before. He gropes blindly at sullied sheets that are tangled hopelessly around his naked limbs, both manacles and reminders of activities that make his face flush. When no rosy flesh meets his groping palms, he blinks open his bleary eyes and gazes weakly at the slices of sunlight illuminating the emptiness of his bed.

_(PLEASE DON'T DO THIS.) _"Sakura," he says uncertainly to the vacant air surrounding him. When he receives no response, he rolls over and buries his face into her pillow, moaning in disgruntled abandonment. _(IT HURTS.)_

The room is silent, a bubble of suffocation in the excitement of the inhabitants of the trailer lot. First there is only the asphyxiating grip of abandonment, then the resuscitating reminder that the world has not ended frees himself from the cocoon of his sheets, and just as he's moved his legs over the side to stand, she's there.

She steps through the door and closes it silently behind her, pulling a double-take when she spots him awake and sitting.

She eyes him over for a minute, standing blatantly in her undergarments. Karin always stole the blankets from the bed, wrapping them around herself like a sex-stained wedding gown. He'd joked once that white was the color of virgins, and she had been angry. "I thought you would still be sleeping."

He shrugs in response, "I'm not."

In a beat of silence, he fears the coming of post-coital awkwardness. But then she crawls into the bed behind him, dropping a paperback next to him so she can curl her arms around his chest. He can feel the pressure of her cheek against the back of his neck, the heat of her breath on his shoulder.

"You were reading?" he asks, and glances at the cover of the novel. It is one of Karin's, though he's sure she never read it. She liked to carry books around to look smart, but he doesn't think she made it passed the first page. The copy of _Brave New World_ in her hand that first day was what originally made her attractive. His mother loved books.

Sakura nods into his flesh, her eyelashes tickling him when she blinks.

"Sometimes you… I don't think that… It hurts when…" she stumbles over her quiet words and each unfinished sentence echoes in his head. Each failed attempt builds until she mutters a defeated, "Yesterday was fun."

The bruises on the wrists against his chest speak the words she won't, and each mark weeps quietly inside him. But he cannot be sorry. He was built this way by a lifetime of betrayal, and if he gives in now he will break. "Yeah, it was," he whispers.

"Good. Are we going to go donate blood now?" She slides out from behind him and begins to get dressed in miscellaneous items from her duffel bag. He eyes the arch of her bruise-mottled spine resembling an aged banana peel as she pulls a loose fitting T-shirt over her head.

The walls threaten to close in, but they never do. So Sasuke starts to pull on the same clothes as the night before, abandoning the sight of his branded girlfriend for the so very complicated belt around his hips. "Now we're going to get some breakfast," he decides, and hides while he still can.

* * *

**Sakura**

Sakura never appreciated Sasuke's habit of driving with the windows down back when they were in Rain Country. In Konoha it feels like bliss. The streams of the cool spring breeze smell of old oak trees and blossoming fruits, and the scenery is a film reel of familial green just inches from her grasp. It is a reminder of all the comforts of home, the things she missed when she left it behind.

Soon the tour will end, but Sakura thinks maybe she'll be okay just like she always is. She could go home and live with her mother and join Sasuke for the circus tours during the winter season. It would be beautiful. She wouldn't be scared anymore. She isn't scared anymore.

The scenery rolls to a halt, and Sakura takes a deep breath of fry grease and car exhaust.

"Wait here," Sasuke says, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind him. She watches his twitching form as he vanishes inside the service station. She hadn't noticed it before, but she supposes Sasuke has been quiet, maybe even sullen. She consoles herself with the reminder that she is very tired and any ignorance on her part can be blamed on her lack of sleep.

"A love explosion," she says under her breath, tasting the words on her tongue. When she imagines Ino lying naked in a bed of rose petals, she can almost believe it. But with Sasuke she had felt the same as with any other man. Like a lump of flesh, gripped and bruised and all used up.

Maybe you only have so many chances, and after that you're broken. Maybe her stints with Sai and all the other faceless men broke whatever it is inside her that is supposed to feel pleasure. Maybe she's just supposed to be with Sasuke and love sex because he loves her. Even if it hurts.

He returns with a bag that looks like it was steeped in oil and two insulated cups in his hand.

She sniffs at her drink, a frown tugging at her lips when she smells what can only be coffee, "What is this?"

He pitches the bag to her and she catches it with a minor fumble. "Breakfast."

A breakfast sandwich greets her with limp bacon and a soggy English muffin. She stares at hers and Sasuke stares at his until the first reluctant bite is taken.

"Mmm," Sasuke says, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. This feels so familiar, but he is not Naruto and they are not at the abandoned gas station across from DONT. And Naruto would never get her coffee. He knew her so much better than that.

Sasuke's arm comes away with a darkish smear of what used to be his lips, his face left with a spotless pale vacancy that could only be explained by her mind's instability. She sucks in the grease-stained air for whatever it's worth, gripping at his hand and rubbing at the mouth-shaped imprint on his skin.

"What?" he asks, pulling his arm back from her uncomfortable probing, "Oh, I get it. It's not the five star breakfast you were expecting on the morning after."

He keeps his hands out of her reach, keeps them busy with cramming his purchases back into the bag. "No, wait," she says, but when she looks at his face again the mouth is right back where it belongs. Ivory squares of teeth peek out from between his pouting lips.

He blinks at her with an unamused stare and she gapes back.

"Uh, um," she stutters, "No, you're right, I'm sorry. I just don't like coffee is all. It's alright, though." She punctuates her sentence by taking a bite from his sandwich, just because it's what is lying on top. He rolls his shoulder and runs his fingers through his hair, then smiles and then stops.

"I'll get you something else to drink," he decides after a moment of internal debate, "I should have asked you what you wanted."

She shakes her head, "No, really. I'm fine."

He laughs in response, a little too freely, and his shoulders shake a little too much with the effort. She tries to grab at his trembling hands one more time, but he gets out of the car too quickly, the door slamming behind him like an instant replay.

* * *

She fell asleep. She realizes this when it's dark outside and the gas station is the only light around for miles. There are flies in the car and with a squeal, she shoves her way out and onto the paved ground. Something wet and gritty clings to her palms and she lets out a miserable and confused whimper.

The only other patron in the vicinity observes her with vague disinterest as he pushes his way into the store, making his way down an isle and disappearing from sight. She stares after him with a puzzled gawk.

Slowly her surroundings come into focus. Grit and neon light. Crickets keep her company. What are you doing here? they ask her. She shakes her head. She doesn't know.

She waits by the car for another few minutes, just because it seems to make sense that Sasuke would be back at any second. But then it is 10:00 at night and she is _alone_.

The cashier doesn't even glance at her when she enters the establishment, but flips idly through a magazine. "Yes?" he asks after she stares for too long.

The patron from earlier is making his selection of cheese puffs, but other than that no one else is inside the building. Sasuke is not here.

"I'm looking for my boyfriend," Sakura says slowly, the words reluctant to form on her lips, "I fell asleep."

The cashier stares at her with an unfriendly frown and points to the man behind her, middle aged and slouching. "That him?"

Sakura observes him for a moment, baffled enough that she could almost laugh. No matter what way she looks at him, he is not Sasuke, but she stares anyway out of a misplaced sense of hope.

"No," she says with a shrinking voice, "I think he's in his twenties, maybe. He's tall, pale, dark haired. His eyelashes are grey and he doesn't smile very much."

The cashier sighs and rubs at the crease in his brow with mild agitation, throwing his magazine down on the counter. His reluctance is disheartening, but his attitude is nothing in comparison to a situation that has somehow wildly spun out of her control. "That could describe any number of customers I see in a day, lady."

"I-I know," she sobs, blindsiding herself with a burst of emotion. Where could he be? Where could he have possibly gone?

The cashier drops a couple of coins on the counter and they clatter noisily on the polished top. They sit there, gleaming and glaring. "There's a phone out back."

* * *

The sky is cloudless and bright from the swollen moon, but Sakura stumbles through the dark with numb limbs. She wants to call Ino or Konan or Itachi, but she never learned their phone numbers. She cries into the receiver without dialing a number until her roaming eyes catch the wilted phone book. She laughs, flipping through the pages with hiccups bubbling from her lips, but she doesn't even know their last names. Even if they told her once, she doesn't remember now.

"_911, what is your emergency?"_

She breathes deep breaths, once, twice. She wipes the stream of tears from her cheeks and reports her story with a semblance of calm. How many times has she spoken to the cops without a hitch in her voice? But it's like whatever talent she had for façades of bravery has dissipated since Sasuke forced every inch of his being inside of her.

"Help me find him," she chokes, "Help me find Naruto."

She doesn't even notice her slip up. But there is a pause. _"What is your name?"_ the officer asks.

Sakura swallows, imagining Kakashi in his lonely apartment. His eye patch and his dog and the soup he gave her and the clothes. She swallows, thinking that maybe her 10th grade yearbook photo could plastered on this man's wall with ten other missing children, but maybe this is Kakashi, the man who saved her. Maybe she can trust him.

"My name is Sakura Haruno," she cries. "Help me."

* * *

Late into the night she arrives at their circus camp in a vehicle of spinning lights. A tow-truck disengages Sasuke's trailer from it's hooks and chains, leaving it in a line among the others.

Konan comes out to meet her, to pull her from the police man's grasp. He is kind man, dark with a scar across the bridge of his nose. He is made of smiles. He releases her as Konan pulls her into her arms with a thick hug, tight with repressed emotion and regret.

"He's here," Konan says sympathetically into her hair, patting her shoulder experimentally. "He walked here from nowhere and wouldn't say what happened to you. We were all worried."

Sakura stares unblinkingly toward the stooped circus tent in the distance, a collage of shadows and flashing lights. It is illuminated from within and she thinks she can see the shape of a backlit performer across the striped canvas.

She grips Konan's waist and ribs, drowning herself in whatever comfort will be offered her. She closes her eyes to the leap of faith the performer in the tent executes, a conclusion to a private recital. "I'm okay," she whispers. By the okay of the policeman and Konan, she excuses herself to visit the animals and their judgeless stares. She trudges away under Officer Iruka's watchful eyes.

* * *

_In a dumpster a body rots, and nobody misses the woman it belonged to._

"_Better her than me."_

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** Golly, I cannot believe how long it took me to get this chapter out. I've been slowly writing this chapter for a month, though.

The "Why are you naked?" part came from my childhood. A friend and I were going on a hike in our bikini tops and a little boy asked us that. His father made him apologize.

I'm sorry if this chapter seems disjoint or strange or confusing. Basically everything after Sasuke does up his belt I wrote today, and I was really really tired today. When I finish this whole dang thing, I'll explain my motives and crud for everything.

By the way, the day after Christmas is this story's birthday. Happy birthday, **Wind-Up Dolls**!

Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas to you guys. BTW, if you wanna follow me on tumblr, my username is magictampon.

-MT


	21. eighteen

Wind Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Welcome Home" by Radical Face and "How it Ends" by Devotchka

* * *

_Tenten lets a stranger fuck her while Neji waits in the hallway. The apartment is old and smells like mildew, but it's warm so he waits even though he doesn't like what he hears._

_When the night grows quiet, the door opens and an old man's head pops out, "Get your whore out of here. She won't stop crying, and it's giving me a headache."_

* * *

**Will I ever learn from my mistakes?**

* * *

****Chapter Eighteen

**Sasuke**

He watches Sakura return through the blinds of Konan's trailer window. The woman wraps the jilted girl in her Madonna arms, erasing the sin of what Sasuke has done to her. Neither of them even look his way, but he can feel their disappointment and disgust.

Sasuke wants to hold her. He wants to kiss her eyes and bury his face in the warmth of her neck. Sasuke wants to scream and hide and dig his fingertips into the flesh of her hips. He needs to be alone. He needs to be avoided and hated and ignored.

Sakura untangles herself from Konan's worried limbs, and mouths a few silent syllables to the policeman, her savior. He watches her a few moments longer, until she disappears from the artificial halo in front of his hiding place and is swallowed by the darkness.

Ino practices in the circus tent, already training to be better than he ever was.

"Some people are supposed to be alone, little brother," Itachi murmurs quietly, with the intention of something like comfort beneath his voice.

"What do you know?" Sasuke asks, aiming for vitriol but ending up with nothing like it. He just sounds like a scared little boy and it sickens him.

* * *

**Sakura**

"Star light, star bright…first star I see tonight," Sakura whispers, glaring half-lidded at the universe above. She has to pick strands of hay from her hair and the folds of her crinkled T-shirt. Ino's always hated how she comes back smelling like the musty animal pens, leaving golden strands littered across the floor.

"Wish I may, wish I might," she continues, climbing the steps to Ino's trailer, depositing her mucky shoes with a thump. The door opens so silently that for a moment Sakura thinks she never went indoors at all. The ceiling is speckled with radiant pockmarks, glittering with promise in the darkest recesses. Ino put up the glow stars she bought. "Grant the wish I wish tonight."

The darkness looks so inviting that Sakura leaves behind the slight illumination of the moonlight to live in this artificial galaxy. She tumbles right in to her unmade bed without bothering to pull off her grimy jeans.

Right as she begins to drift into dreamland, Ino's voice rises quickly and quietly over the silence, "After this tour, Madara says I'm taking over as the lead trapeze artist."

Sakura jolts away from the golden harps of her impending dream and into the reality of Ino's statement. "What?"

Ino rolls over until Sakura can slightly see the glassy shines in her azure eyes, the fountain of her hair spilling over the side of the bed. "I can't believe Sasuke is leaving! Are you guys getting married or something?" she squeals excitedly.

Sakura peels off her shirt and pants in the spare moment of lucidity, shucking them away to rest her burning skin against the cool of the sheets. "No," she says, burying her face in the comfort of her pillow, numb to Sasuke's name and Ino's enthusiasm. She doesn't know what's happening, and maybe she doesn't want to.

"Oh," Ino responds, slowly deflating. After a minute of careful examination, she clambers down from her bed and curls at Sakura's side like a falling star. "I'm sorry, honey," she hums, and strokes the girls hair with the pads of her fingertips.

"Me too," Sakura says into the pillow, and bursts into quiet tears.

* * *

Ino makes her a mug of hot cocoa, stirring the marshmallows into the heat until they dissolve.

"Thanks," Sakura whispers even though she isn't thirsty, and takes the drink into her hands. When she lifts the cup to her mouth, it's only to hide an unimpressive practice smile, "So you're going to be famous?"

Ino shrugs and pulls a blanket over her own shoulders as she perches on the end of her bed. She looks so tired that Sakura wants to tell her to go ahead and sleep, but her eyes are wide and bright with optimism.

"Sasuke told Madara he was leaving at the end of the tour, even though it's rumored that the old man offered him this huge inheritance to sign a life contract. That's why I thought you two must be eloping or something; I can't imagine anyone turning down that kind of money," Ino sighs and gives Sakura an oblique glance as if checking for any upcoming tears.

"It's only a rumor, Ino," Sakura says and sets the mug aside, some of the beverage spilling over her hand. She wipes it on her rumpled shirt and curls up in a ball on her mattress, closing her eyes to Ino's sympathy, "Maybe…maybe his mom or dad is sick. That would explain a lot."

Ino rolls over to lie on her back and stare at the ceiling, but the stars are almost invisible with the light on, "Why are you here, Sakura? Why did you come to this place?"

Sakura blinks her eyes open and stares at Ino's periwinkle painted toenails. For as long as she's been here, no one has ever asked her that question. She's not sure she even knows the answer.

"Because Naruto died," she decides, breathing softly, "And you were waiting for me."

Any other night, Ino would have thrown a pillow at Sakura and accused her of being cheesy. But tonight she just smiles to herself and says, "Yes, I think I was."

* * *

**Sasuke**

He lies on the floor that night, pretending to sleep while he listens to their love-making.

In the dark he can make out the arch of Konan's spine and flesh of her ample breasts. Itachi is buried inside and beneath her, out of sight, but Sasuke can hear his desperate breaths and love-filled gasps.

"Shh…" Konan whispers against his brother's mouth, swallowing his groan. Her breasts swing like a pendulum and her hips sway beneath the moonlight. Sasuke watches because everything she is isn't Sakura. Konan is control and grace where Sakura crumbled in his hands.

"Konan," Itachi breathes, and Sasuke catches a glimpse of his brother's ring, flashing in the dark when he weaves his fingers in Konan's hair.

Sasuke closes his eyes and buries himself beneath the blankets as they stifle their finishing sighs. He tries to go to sleep, but their gasps for air echo in his head for the remainder of the night.

* * *

He leaves before they wake up. The sunlight illuminates their sticky bed sheets and tangled flesh, and it's so bright it burns his eyes. Konan's head lies in the hollow of Itachi's collarbone, their legs woven together like a lattice-top pie. Everything about the two of them makes Sasuke hate his bones and regret his hands.

He escapes to the circus grounds that are loud and boisterous, glowing beneath the springtime sun. Dew drops glitter happily on grass stems that are crushed beneath his coworkers feet.

But one woman sticks to muddy patches and graveled ground. He clears his throat absentmindedly and she looks up, blue eyes flashing dangerously beneath her gold-spun eyelashes.

"Sasuke," Ino growls, and clamps her jaw shut tight when no further words come to mind.

He stomps the twinkling green beneath the balls of his feet and smirks. "Don't worry, Ino," he says, digging his fingers into the pockets of the jeans he has now worn for three days.

She opens and closes her mouth like a silent puppet, balking at his façade of confidence. Sometimes he wishes he didn't have to show her. Sometimes he wishes she could just look at him and know that he is a coward. But it doesn't work that way. There's no way she can really see him through the choking air of cockiness he exudes.

"The show must go on," he says, and heads toward the big tent.

* * *

The wind in his ears sounds like breathing. Like howling. The lights overhead are too bright, pinpricks of hellfire in his eyes. When he sends himself spiraling through the air, it feels clumsy and accidental, but he never falls. No. Ino catches his hands, her palms scraping against his before he's flying again.

He curls his knees to his chest while he _spinsspinsspins_ to let the wings emblazoned on his back glitter beneath the scorching spotlight like he's meant to, but there's no oxygen in his lungs when he catches the swing in a single fist.

He can't remember the next part. The song behind him is building, begging him to finish, but his mind his blank. He hangs in the air like a dead weight, unable to see the audience past the halo of light around him. He knows they're out there, his mother and father. Is _she_ watching him? What is she feeling?

The song ends and the audience's confused applauds slowly build until they pull him back into the raftering and he disappears from sight.

"Are you okay?" asks Suigetsu, when his feet are finally resting on solid ground. Pein is wrapping things up on stage, bidding a good day to their first set of patrons, "You totally choked out there. You'd better be dying, or Madara is going to skin you alive."

Sasuke shakes his head and begins to rip his costume from his body, the clasps along his flank popping off into the dirt. The girls from the acrobatic troop squeal and wolf-whistle in appreciation of his bare chest but the stalks right past them, heading for the animal cages out back.

* * *

**Sakura**

Jugo is helping her strip the tiara from the elephant's head when Sasuke storms in, the tangle of his fairy boy costume tied around his hips.

"Sakura!" he barks from the ground. She tries not to notice that she's nine feet in the air, but her knees wobble beneath her anyway. She's no fairy.

She shares a look with Jugo, who replies calmly, "She's busy right now."

Chewing at her lip, she ignores her boyfriend and works at straightening out the ornate saddle on the elephant's back, unfastening complicated straps and harnesses that were for the safety of the rider cooing nearby.

"I need to talk to you," Sasuke continues without acknowledging Jugo. The redhead told her once that he used to be good friends with Sasuke, that the two of them and Suigetsu and Karin would go out and egg houses and tag trains before things fell apart. Now they never even speak.

Slowly, she climbs down the ladder, waiting until she's sure the dirt beneath her feet is steady and unmoving before she lets go. When she backs away, she bumps her elbow into Sasuke's bare stomach, he's standing so close to her.

"Careful," he says, reaching out to steady her where she stands, but his hands never quite make it.

"Thanks," she replies, and they stare.

His sweat-glossed hair gleams as purely as a looking glass beneath her scrutiny , but his eyes are as blank as empty holes. She doesn't know if she's angry or not, but just standing next to him makes her heart pound sickeningly.

The corner of his mouth trembles and he says, "Walk with me."

* * *

The cherry blossom trees are blooming, tiny buds of pink filling the air with the sweet scent of springtime, but it's cold enough for Sakura to wish she had a jacket. Sasuke's bare arms are sprinkled with goose pimples. She doesn't ask what happened to his costume.

"Are you going to explain to me why I needed a cop to take me home last night?" Sakura asks when she gets tired of walking. Her sleep schedules are backward, and having to work all day without rest is making her grouchy.

"I didn't mean for that to happen," Sasuke says quietly, trying to shove his hands in his pockets until he realizes he doesn't have any, and he settles for crossing his arms instead. It's as much of an admission of guilt as she'll probably ever get.

"Ino said you're quitting," Sakura pushes, "Will you at least explain that?"

He shakes his head, smirking to himself as he laughs emptily, "Why the hell do you even care?"

It suddenly becomes very quiet. It's like the birds stop chirping and the bugs stop buzzing, and Sakura's stomach feels like it's been turned upside down. She finds herself almost shouting, her words bursting out of her, "What do you mean, why do I care? I'm in love with you! I love you and you won't even talk to me and tell me what's wrong! Why do I have to suffer for all of this? Why can't you just tell me what's going on in your head so I don't have to wake up all alone and wonder if you're hurt?"

Sasuke snorts and runs his fingers through his hair, turning around to walk back toward the circus tent.

"Annoying. I didn't ask you out here to argue," he says, his voice so calm and even that it makes Sakura pause to stare. He doesn't seem even remotely affected as he continues, "I just wanted to tell you that we're breaking up. I thought you wouldn't want me to do it in front of everybody else."

The world breaks. It cracks and shudders and falls in two, but Sakura doesn't die.

He turns his back on her and starts to walk away. In another universe she might have screamed or begged, but in this one, she just follows silently behind him.

The tiny quartz slivers in the pavement begin to wink at her and she thinks maybe they're trying to seduce her as they beckon her toward them. When she falls, the rough bites into her flesh like an apple and watches in disappointment as she's crisp and grainy like a pear.

When she starts to cry, Sasuke tells her to suck it up because she's a big girl and that it doesn't hurt as much as she's acting like it does.

The cement stops bruising her knee with love marks and she picks the dirt away, but there is no winking light inside her. And she feels so violated and taken that she wants him to kiss her.

But he won't because he doesn't do that anymore.

* * *

_They stumble out into the night like a couple of inebriated bums. But they are not drunk. She is crying and he is tired, and most of all, they're sick._

"_I want to find a home, Neji," Tenten begs, her pocket heavy with the generous fifty dollars the old man gave her, "Will you please take me home?"_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

**A/N: **YES, I FINALLY DID IT. I FINALLY FINISHED THIS CHAPTER. It took like two months, but it's done. There's one chapter left, and then the epilogue. And then maybe a chapter of junk, like deleted scenes and crud. Maybe. If you want that.

The reason this chapter took so long to get out is because I rewrote it like three times. I think this version was the right one to go with, though.

I'd like to thank everyone for their wonderful reviews. I read each and every one of them, and they inspire me so much. Some of them I read several times because they give me the motivation to keep writing. So thank you! I hope even though it took me so long to update, you'll stick with me and read til the end.

-M


	22. nineteen

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Warning" by Incubus and "Coming Down" by Dear Euphoria.

* * *

_When they part ways, she doesn't kiss him._

"_See ya, Neji!" she says, and there's a twinkle in her eye he's never seen before. She releases her hold from his leather jacket and sashays through the automatic doors to her salvation._

_The housing project is for people like Tenten, young and redeemable. But not wretches like Neji. Not people old and forgotten who should have been something but never will be._

_He waves goodbye, but she never sees._

* * *

**Are you ready? It's time to **_**let go**_**.**

* * *

Chapter Nineteen

**Sasuke**

Orochimaru likes her steak bloody and rare and the red spills freely across the ivory plate. Each time her lips part to take a bite, Sasuke's stomach churns a little and he has to hide his troubled mouth behind his water glass.

"It's a shame Konan could not join us this evening," Fugaku states conversationally, his voice quiet but cutting enough to rise above the other noises in the restaurant. Itachi nods in quiet agreement, and Sasuke cannot help but be envious of his brother's perfect façade of stoicism.

"What about you, Sasuke?" Orochimaru asks, her slanted eyes gazing steadily at him. He can feel his knees trembling beneath the table and he has to wonder if rage is the emotion that is steadily building in his gut, "How is the redhead you were seeing?"

Sasuke attempts to make some sort of response, but only a strangled gargle of a grunt escapes. All he can think about is the red juices on her plate, the red of her lipstick and her nails and the blood on his hands. There is no red hair.

He scratches at his itchy palms beneath the table as if doing so could remove the damage he's done. _What redhead_? he wonders, the words echoing and repeating in his head. There's only Sakura. There was only ever Sakura, and he battered her until neither of them could take it anymore.

Itachi interrupts the building silence with a clatter of his fork and says, "Karin left. He's been dating Sakura the past few weeks. Perhaps you'll get to meet her; Sasuke seems to like this one."

Sasuke takes another heavy gulp of his water but doesn't try to deny it. There aren't enough words inside him.

* * *

At the end of a long dinner he staggers back to his trailer, but he is not alone. His father and stepmother trail behind him, waiting for a message from the prodigal son.

He hesitates a moment, his hand hovering over the knob, but that doesn't end up mattering because Orochimaru opens it before he can do any heavy debating.

"A bona-fide bachelor pad," she speaks huskily, her voice even more honey-dipped than he remembers. She takes a few steps from the entrance until she is slouching against the cabinet that holds his hide-a-bed.

He cannot help but feel that just her presence is poisoning the air. This is his home, but still she must touch everything that is his. She is long boned and fluid, like the poisonous serpent and its sinful fruit, but her body no longer promises any lies of salvation. Now she is just his stepmother, aging and wishing she'd married a different man.

Fugaku, standing wooden and tall in the corner looks out of place against the peeling paper on the walls. He stares, grim and unimpressed for a few brief moments before he strides past Sasuke in a few even steps, the fluorescent outdoor lights emphasizing the grey in his hair and the lines by his eyes.

"I thought you'd have upgraded from this cardboard box by now," he grunts, emerging into the nighttime air, "Itachi's trailer is much nicer."

Sasuke watches him leave and glances back to his stepmother. She blinks long and unenthusiastically at the gumdrop light bulbs he still hasn't taken down after all this time, before sliding out the front door, careful not to touch him as she slinks past.

"I will be home in a few weeks," Sasuke chokes out when they stare at him expectantly, "You didn't need to visit."

Fugaku folds his arms stiffly across his chest and replies, "Clearly."

* * *

They say goodbye and nobody smiles. Sasuke closes the door and sleeps alone and dreams about Mikoto's laugh.

Nothing has changed.

* * *

**Sakura**

They've stayed almost a week in Konoha, and the magic of the circus seems to have evaporated with the sunlight. The stooped red and white stripes of the tent look less like the home of a three ring circus and more like the open mouth to the seven circles of hell. The energy is gone and the flames are silent.

"I'll take them," Sasuke says, extending his already overwhelmed arms in invitation for more bags and packages. He's not even looking at her, but through the fringe of his eyelashes to the groceries in her hands.

Sakura shakes her head defiantly, pulling her charges closer to her person. She wonders if Konan even knows that she and Sasuke are broken up, and if she would have sent them together on an errand if she did. Sasuke only rolls his eyes and sighs, not caring to exert anymore effort over her petulance. She feels like a child scolded for poor behavior, but she refuses to hide in her room and sulk when she promised to help with the shopping.

Besides, she can't go back her trailer now, knowing that Ino won't be there and she'll have to cry herself to sleep in the dark. It's barely home without her to whisper goodnight to through the blackness.

When they get to Itachi and Konan's trailer, Sasuke still holds the door open for her like a gentleman. Their elbows scrape as she passes, the chapped flesh kissing and apologizing where their mouths stay still and quiet, but the moment passes as soon as it came. They set the groceries out systematically, avoiding contact through vision and flesh, and then Sakura speaks.

"It could be worse, I guess. We could have forgotten the peanut butter." Her voice is too loud in the silent kitchenette, and Sasuke offers her a sidelong glance. Their colliding sightlines hurt more than she is prepared for.

"Sakura," he says simply, and then they don't try to talk.

* * *

She abandons her responsibility to the animals so she can watch the performance through slats in the bleachers. For now, Ino is still a shadow with hands outstretched for service. It's hard to imagine that in less than a year's time the woman will be the star of the show. But she deserves it, and Sakura feels that with all her heart.

She watches Sasuke for what she promises is the final time, the way his spine arches, the emblazoned wings on his back screaming _save me_ with no one there but Ino to catch him. In a few weeks Sakura will once again be shucked away to the wilderness with nothing but memories of his hollow heart, her grinning eyes, and their magic double act.

The performance ends with Sasuke's ankle linked with the joint of the swing, like it has so many times before, and the audience roars. Beneath the reverberating bleachers the sound builds and destroys, but she lingers as tingles wash over her arms, until goodnights are bid and she can crawl away into the moonlight to watch the crowd escape hell with smiles.

"SAKURAAA!," she hears from behind her, and when she turns around, there is a boy about her age. He looks like a life she left behind, of nights spent beneath stars glimpsed through sheets of raindrops and stomachs full of misspelled donuts and waiting to die.

She walks forward on unsteady legs until she is colliding with him and there is no space between them, just their heartbeats and tears. She remembers being a little kid and Dan coming home from a long time away, the way she'd wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as tightly as she could, 'til he was choking out laughter and promising to never leave again.

"Promise," she orders into his neck without explanation, breathing in his new smell that is faintly like a small child while it sleeps, and not at all like wind blisters and city grit.

He squeezes her lungs out and cries, "I promise."

* * *

Kisses are planted on noses and cheeks, eyelids. They map the paths of each other's bones, recognizing what has changed and what has stayed the same. Their stomachs are plumper, their skin healthier and pinker, but their eyes and hearts and smiles are still reflections of their younger selves.

"I thought you were dead."

"I tried to find you."

There is the rumbling of a cleared throat, and Naruto's eyes flit over her shoulder. She turns and Sasuke is behind her, still clad in his leotard. This time he is not watching her hands through carefully lowered eyelids, but they are wide and quietly beseeching, soaking in her face and Naruto's and trying to understand.

Sakura does not release her hold on her friend's ghost, but grins widely and happily. "Sasuke, this is my best friend, Naruto. Naruto, this is my -this is Sasuke."

The dark-haired boy stares at them long and with imperceptible emotion, his eyes roaming their linked fingers and exuberant smiles. Sakura wants to laugh, so she does. She lets out a few loud guffaws and then Naruto is joining in because it is contagious. She thinks softly to herself, _My boys._

But Sasuke shrugs his shoulders in what could only be disinterest before mumbling, "Whatever," and begins to walk away.

"Wait, Sasuke," she blurts before she even knows what to say.

He stops and turns around, staring at her impassively. And for a moment she remembers the way his warm hands felt, tracing circles on her hipbones, and the brutal strength of his arms as he pinned her violently against the bathroom counter. They are over. There is nothing left but memories, is there?

"You did a beautiful job today," she says, and almost considers stopping there. But she adds on hesitantly, "Don't give up. I know you're leaving, but don't give up."

He sighs and rolls his eyes, but she can't help but hope she eased the secret burden on his heart just a little. "Annoying," he grumbles, and continues down the path to his brother's abode.

"He seems like a jackass," Naruto laughs, and throws his arm around Sakura's shoulder, pulling her closer to his heart. She can hear it beat.

"I think you'd like him," Sakura says softly.

Blub dub, blub dub.

_It's time to go home._

* * *

"So this is your family," Madara states, rubbing the bridge of his nose with withered fingers. His office, usually piled high with organized clutter is nearly barren. There are no folders fattened with flyers and lists and reams of information. There is a single stick of incense, clouding the room with its prominent ginger scent, sitting on the cherry wood desk.

Sakura looks around at the people in the room. There is Naruto, beaming happily from a creaking chair _(and when did he grow so handsome?)_. Kakashi, the one-eyed cop who needed to save her so he could save himself, standing tall like a policeman should. And there is a woman Sakura has never met, looking proud and satisfied all the same. They feel accomplished. It buzzes in the air like static, making the hair on her arms stand on end.

"This is my family," Sakura confirms steadily, "And they want me to go back with them."

Kakashi looks at her with his single eye, a crinkle forming at the corner when he smiles. And Sakura realizes with a lump in her throat, that she can see. She can see him and his face is there and whole and she is not afraid. She is _happy_.

"This doesn't have to be permanent, Sakura. You can go home and be with your family and continue to tour with us next year," Madara promises, and she almost thinks he might be desperate. Why? "Sasuke is leaving because you are. I'm sure you don't want to ruin his career."

Kakashi clears his throat threateningly, but Sakura only smiles. No amount of attempted manipulation could ever ruin what this circus has given her. "Thank you, but I will have to pass. Ino will make you proud, Madara. Thank you so much for all you've done for me."

The old man wrinkles his nose and hands over her final paycheck with reluctance. She has to pry it from his fingers with a small effort, but then she is free. Kakashi opens the door and the springtime air guides them into the moonlight.

"This is good, isn't it?" Sakura asks, looking for the star that shines the brightest. Is she brave now? Has she accomplished anything?

The door shuts behind her and a fatherly hand rests on her shoulder. "Sakura…It is wonderful."

She nods. "I thought so."

* * *

They leave the circus in the middle of the night, not without farewells.

But it is not the goodbyes that are important. It's the feelings and the tears as Sakura gives the stooping big top one last wave. It creaks in the wind and whispers final blessings of luck.

THANK YOU.

* * *

_There are things they'll say they were sad to leave behind._

_"I miss when there were no adults to boss me around," Tenten might grump as the other girls from the housing project nod in agreement. But this is a lie, because she is glad to be safe._

_And in another world Kiba will ask, "You want her back, don't you?" It'll be a rare moment of agonizing lucidity, because sometimes even he realizes the life they live isn't living at all._

_And Neji might disagree, but he'll whisper inside that he'll never ever forget her._

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

**A/N:** It's strange. This is the first story I've ever written where I absolutely did not plan a single thing. I completely just came up with this as I went.

I'm not sure how I feel about this as a last chapter. I think that I should have included the parts about Fugaku and Orochimaru in the previous chapter, but I hadn't thought of them yet. I think if I go back and revise this story, I'll fix that.

There is an epilogue after this. I feel that final chapters should be good and solid, but that they should leave the readers hungering for something further. I think the epilogue should be something soothing. Like an, "It's okay. This happens." So please let me know if you think that this was a good final chapter, and don't forget to stay tuned for the upcoming epilogue.

-MT


	23. epilogue

Wind-Up Dolls

Songs listened to: "Remains" by Jed Whedon and Melissa Tancharoen, and "Everywhere I Go" by Lissie

* * *

_There are so many. They are white snowflakes, frozen rain pellets poured out on the earth like a beautiful accident. She spins, head tilted back toward the sky to taste them as they fall on her tongue. She is safe now._

* * *

**I am not afraid.**

* * *

Naruto's hot breath on her ear is comforting, but overbearing in the humid heat of their blanket coffin. Maybe she can't sleep because she's too comfortable, too safe, and that in itself feels false and precarious.

She slides from beneath Naruto's heavy arm and lands lightly on the floor, grabbing his oversized T-shirt to pull over her head. It's a disgusting barf-orange, but it makes her feel infinitely better than pulling on the layers of her own discarded clothes. The freedom she'd felt as she'd stripped bare was immeasurable.

She peeks one last time at Naruto's sleeping form, wary of him waking to find her gone. But he doesn't so much as stir as she slips past the heavy door.

The dark hallway is illuminated only by the vague "EXIT" sign that casts a red glow in its respective corner. In its light is a darkly shadowed young man with sooty hair and an ashen face, hollows where his eyes should be. A cigarette burns between his lips, red as the letters above his head.

Sakura cradles her bony ribcage in her arms and sidles away from the door, hoping that any speech will not rouse Naruto from his dreaming. But this man looks familiar and she must talk to him. She feels like there's something important to say.

"Who are you?" she asks, her voice coming out a delicate whisper.

And maybe it should be obvious who it is, but she never finds out.

* * *

She wakes to her cell phone buzzing. The tiny light on the cover blinks blue in her face, bright and blinding in comparison to the darkness of her bedroom. She lets out a tiny groan, shielding her eyes with the back of her hand as she flips the phone open and presses it to her ear.

"Hello?" she grunts, licking her lips with a dry tongue. She doesn't know what time it is, but it must be pretty early if it's not even light out yet.

"Hey, Sakura! I'm outside!" greets Naruto's chipper voice, crackling loudly in her ear.

Sakura almost considers hanging up, but decides it's not worth the hand movement. She moans pitifully, "Naruto, go away. I'm sleeping."

He laughs into the phone and another burst of static assaults her ears, "Come on, Sakura! It's cold. Let me in the house."

He's right. It _is_ cold. Just another reason not to leave her pile of quilts. But regretfully, she can't deny Naruto much of anything when it comes down to it.

She mournfully tosses her blankets aside and steps into the frosty air of her bedroom, toeing on her pink bunny slippers. They're not exactly what she would have picked for herself, but they are one of many gifts Ino mailed her. That makes them her automatically her favorite.

Grabbing a crinkled sweatshirt from the back of the chair by her bedside desk, she shoves her arms through the sleeves but doesn't bother to pull it over her head. "You'd better be like, pressed against the door when I get down there. None of that waiting for you to cross the front lawn B.S."

Naruto only laughs again, and now that she's a little more awake she can appreciate the warmth of his voice. "Just think, a year ago we were probably camping out at DONT."

Sakura shakes her head into the phone and trudges down the creaking steps. It wouldn't matter if she tiptoed or stomped; the house would still groan relentlessly. If Sakura were planning on sneaking out, she'd slide down the banister, but for now she couldn't care less if she woke Tsunade.

"We were under the bridge," Sakura says, barely touching on the memory of the day before Hinata died, "You thought I was asleep, but I wasn't. She was crying and you kissed her forehead. That cheered her up so quickly I almost laughed."

She doesn't need to clarify who she's talking about. She knows Naruto remembers. He remembers every moment he spent with the quiet, stuttering girl who couldn't make it through a whole sentence without blushing.

For a moment, Sakura remembers Hinata's eyes, glossy and colorless. Sometimes she has to scream so loud her voice goes out just to keep from imagining her dead body underground, wriggling with maggots.

That's just the way it is, sometimes.

She disables the security alarm and Naruto barrels in, shaking beads of melted snow in every direction to dry himself. He shuts his phone and she shuts hers and immediately he goes for a hug.

"You smell like ramen," she gripes, pretending to struggle as he crushes her against his chest in a bear hug. She smiles into the padding of his coat and giggles, despite the fact that he's getting her pajamas damp.

"And you smell like a stinky bed bug," he says, playfully shoving her away and ducking a swipe at his head, "Man, I'm parched. You got any pop?"

Sakura rolls her eyes and shrugs, padding into the kitchen behind him. "We've got hot cocoa. Hey, what's that you're holding?"

Naruto flicks on the kitchen light and turns to face her, holding up a small package in his hand. "Oh, yeah. It's for you. It was on the front porch." He tosses it carefully to her and she catches it with only a minor fumble.

Naruto heads over to the pantry to rifle through it, leaving her to investigate the package. It is nondescript, despite the season. The wrapping paper is a plain cream color. There's no ribbon or shipment information, just her name scrawled messily in marker.

She opens it gingerly on the kitchen table, ignoring Naruto's mumbles of dismay at her lack of soda. She's not sure she's ever received an unmarked package before and it's kind of exciting. The wrapping peels away easily beneath her prying fingers, and she opens the plain cardboard box inside.

"So, what is it?" Naruto asks, mouth full of graham crackers. A crease forms between his eyebrows when he spots the snow globe in her hand.

It's not quite fit for the holiday, glittered confetti hearts raining atop a pair of lovers' heads when shakes it. It's for Valentine's Day, not Christmas. It makes her heart tingle.

"It's from…" Sakura words catch in her throat, and she clears her throat to free them, "It's from Sasuke."

Naruto is silent for a moment, and he slowly raises another graham-cracker to his mouth, chomping on it thoughtfully. He knows the abridged version of her relationship with the fairy boy, but she supposes she may have left out an important detail. She never mentioned how much she loved him.

"That moron doesn't know what holiday it is," Naruto eventually chuckles, setting the box of crackers on the counter and throwing an arm around her shoulder, "Go wake up the old lady. We're going to see the tree."

Sakura nods, a hesitant smile pulling at her lips, and she darts back up the steps to her mother's room.

Sasuke wanted to escape. She never could have stopped him, could she?

* * *

They step carefully from the train and onto the underground platform. This isn't Sakura's favorite part of the city, but at this time of year when everything twinkles and glistens, she can forget the harsh cold and monochrome that she just wants to leave behind.

"Brats, waking me up so early," Tsunade gripes without any real irritation. Sakura knows how the woman feels about the city, so bright and bustling with activity. Sometimes Tsunade can even persuade her to leave the comfort of their rural home to experience the night life of the more urban areas of their town.

Tonight it's cold enough that she can't feel her toes. They take the escalator from the bowels of the subway and emerge onto snow-spotted ground.

No, Sakura doesn't mind the city. Not when the brilliant fairy lights are strung up, sparkling like spilt glitter. The buildings are tall and looming overhead, almost like shields. Sometimes she can even find sanctuary here.

"I wonder if anything is open this early," Naruto states curiously, patting his stomach and glancing about, "I'm starved."

Sakura jabs him with her elbow and scowls, "Idiot, you just ate half my kitchen."

Naruto shrugs and grabs Sakura's extend arm, tickling her in the side. "What can I say? I'm a growing boy, Sakura! You know that!"

Sakura squeals and shoves at him, smacking him in the face when the tickling doesn't subside, "Quit it!"

The snow crunches beneath their boots loudly in the midst of their childish scuffle, and Tsunade clears her throat to hide bubbles of her own laughter.

Sakura can't help but grin at her mother's smiling face.

"There's a coffee place about a block away," Tsunade says, wiping the traces of enjoyment from her face when she realizes they've stopped bickering to observe her, "The least you two could do for dragging me out of bed is buy me something to drink."

Sakura links arms with her mother, resting her head on her shoulder, "Of course, Mom."

* * *

"What's got Jiraiya so tangled up that he couldn't bother to join us this morning?" Tsunade asks, fingers curled around an ivory mug, steaming with a hot latte. Not her preferred morning beverage, but since Sakura returned there's been no trace of sake in their lives. Sakura has wanted to tell her that she misses the familiarity of alcohol on her mother's breath, but maybe some thoughts are better left unsaid.

Naruto stretches exaggeratedly, grinning at the ceiling. "Well…I'm not supposed to tell anybody this…"

"But…" Sakura urges, before slurping a large dollop of whipped cream from the top of her drink. Another thing that has remained unaltered by time.

"Kakashi and Rin are having another baby!" he screams, spittle flying in all directions.

Silence follows, abrupt and brief. The truth is known now, about the boy she loved so long ago who killed himself, and how he was Kakashi's son. Sakura wishes she'd known how to mourn properly at the time.

"I'm very happy to hear that," she interjects quietly, smiling into her warped reflection in her hot chocolate.

"Wow," Tsunade says, "I would never have expected that."

Naruto's grin is broad and secretive, but he can't hold it in for long. The two women stare at him, long and probing until he confesses, "If it's a boy, they're naming him after my dad."

Sakura smiles and knocks back a large gulp of her piping hot drink to keep from crying.

This makes her so very happy.

* * *

Staring at the tree all lit up in the center of town is like a dream. In this city where everything is taller than her, she feels so small, like a dot in the universe.

"Sakura," she hears.

He belongs in the sunrise, she thinks.

If you love someone, you should see them in every possible way, shouldn't you? You should know what they look like when they're hurting, when they're smiling or laughing. Backlit by the sun. Soaking wet. Screaming.

But Sasuke, the slightest smirk on h is countenance, just a black spot in a city of lights…he belongs here. With her.

"Sasuke? What are you doing here?" she asks. It's been a long time. Maybe nine months, even. She doesn't know who approaches who, but soon they are standing almost toe-to-toe.

He is beautiful; she knows it was right to think of his eyelashes as the earth on a frostbitten night. His dark irises reflect the blood-oozing sunrises, his skin alabaster and soft.

"I just moved here," he says after a moment of observational silence, reaching out a hand to touch her arm, but it falls just a little bit short. She catches his hand in hers, holding it like a precious gem.

"What are you doing _here_?" she asks again, holding his frozen skin against her gloved palm. Everything is so clear right now. She can feel cold nipping at her ears, the strain of the rubber-band holding back her strawberry hair. She can see the clouds of their breaths, culminating between them and ghosting out like escaping spirits.

His fingers curl around hers, the nails bitten short, like hers. "Annoying. Obviously Naruto told me you would be here."

Sakura looks around and finds that Naruto and her mother are nowhere to be found. It is just him and her. Them.

"Let's be friends. Okay, Sasuke?" she asks, not even trying to mask the hope in her tone. This Sasuke is different from the one she knew. Maybe in the nine months since she left him _(or he left her)_ he has been liberated from the chains that bound him.

He lets go of her hand and stares up at the angel on the top of the magnificent tree. A gust of wind chills the back of their necks.

"Whatever," he says.

He's smiling.

* * *

_He watches from the porch as she vanishes into the white, making a precious snow angel._

"_Sakura?" he calls. She is laughing. Everything will be alright now._

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: There are so many things I wanted to say about this story. I wanted to ramble endlessly about my preoccupation with abusive relationships and how the media likes to show the shit part of them when there is a reason that women fall in love with the men that do them harm.

But basically I'll just say that the movie "Heathers" inspired everything that ended up happening between Sasuke and Sakura. I'm not sure if I accomplished my goal…but I wanted you to love Sasuke, despite the fact that he was violent and flaky and insane.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, either in a review or a PM.

But I have a question for you. There are a few deleted scenes, and I want to know if I should post them in another chapter so that you can all read them. Would you like that? A chapter of extras?

Anyway, thank you all for reading and reviewing and all of your support. I appreciate it so much. I'm not sure what's next on the horizon, but hopefully it's something good!

-MT


	24. extras

**A/N:** First off, I want to thank absolutely everyone who even glanced at my story. You motivated me beyond belief to keep working on it. I know it took a long time between updates, and I'm sorry for that.

If you liked this story, I recommend you read the books **"Can't Get There From Here" **by **Todd Strasser** and **"Water For Elephants" **by **Sara Gruen**. I was also inspired by the movies **"The Pursuit of Happyness"** and **"Heathers."** And many, many songs.

Anyway. On to the deleted scenes.

* * *

**1. A scene from chapter five. Sakura wakes up at the night club, Sound. I got rid of it because it ended up being too much like something I'd read before.**

She grabs the items from him and moves to the floor. It looks so different when empty. What the night before had looked like a flashing, twinkling room of excitement and passion and sex instead looks just like an empty warehouse with chipped flooring and a dingy bar.

She goes to the sink and starts to fill the bucket with dish soap and water. The DJ leans against the wall and watches her.

"Where's Tayuya?" she asks, shifting uncomfortably. The leather is pinching in all the wrong places and she wonders if she looks as hellish as she feels. She wonders where her shoes are. The floor without the heat of dancing bodies is hard, cracked, and cold.

"She took the wallet from your coat and took off," he says with a smirk, then pushes off from the wall with a practiced grace and stalks toward her, "But if you need money, I know a way you can make some."

She tries to feel anger toward Tayuya, but the girl did her a favor by bringing her here to begin with. Sakura needed to get away from her thoughts of Naruto, and escape she nearly did. She hopes he's okay. She wishes she could leave right this very second, but she doubts the DJ would take too kindly to that. She wants to sigh and grumble at the world and it's piggish males, but instead she flutters her eyelashes and pouts her lips, "Yeah? How's that?"

He laughs sardonically and walks back to the room behind the bar, calling back over his shoulder, "You can do the dishes, too!"

When she's done mopping the floor and doing the dishes, the DJ is asleep on a red sofa upholstered with fabric that feels like itchy carpet. His arm is thrown over his eyes to block out the light and he lets out soft snores. She doesn't want to leave the warmth of the establishment, but she has to check on Naruto.

She taps him lightly on the shoulder. He snorts and jerks into a sitting position, sucking air in through his teeth. He looks around wildly for a minute, trying to orient himself, and then he settles on her with a glare.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asks gruffly, rubbing the stubble on his face. His wrists peeks out from beneath the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt and she notices for the first time that his arms are tattooed with a strange, swirling design.

"I did the floor and the dishes," she says softly with a shrug. He groans and falls back into his reclining position, throwing his arm back over his eyes.

"Whoop-dee-doo," he replies, and for all intents and purposes, goes back to sleep.

She stares at his sleeping form for a moment, pulls on her old sneakers and her new fluffy coat and decides it's time to leave. But she breaks a few things first.

* * *

**2. A scene from chapter seventeen. I wrote it before I decided that I wanted there to be a part of the story where Sasuke gets Sakura coffee instead of hot chocolate, just as another hint that they aren't really right for each other.**

He wishes he had been less considerate. The ruffled tank top and teeny shorts he supplied Sakura with offer full display of the blooming purplish marks that mottle her creamy skin. He wants to tell her to cover herself up, but that would be a little ridiculous, wouldn't it? When he both caused the bruises and chose the outfit?

But the mosaic of injury is making him ill. He can't stop wincing at whatever fleeting glances he gathers from the corners of his eyes, and he can't sooth the churning of his stomach when she smiles at him with that fake doe-eyed persona she has used to cope with whatever feeling she is hiding from him.

Anxiety keeps gripping at his lungs and ripping through his muscles. She does not love him, he's sure of it. Whatever affection he might have seen in her eyes was an illusion brought on by the Technicolor strobe lights. He was wrong. He was wrong and she is going to leave him, _he knows it_. His hands keep quaking on the steering wheel, his foot twitching on the gas pedal. He can feel the spasms of his pulse in his throat, threatening to choke him.

His eyes flicker from the road to the girl beside him, and his heart leaps in his chest when her vacant eyes crinkle in another forced smile. She is tired, but afraid to fall asleep so near him. He broke this. He ruined it. She's going to leave him.

Suddenly the car sputters and rolls to a groaning halt on the shoulder of the freeway.

"What's going on?" Sakura asks, blinking rapidly as if to clear her eyes of smoke. Sasuke trembles in his seat, scanning his dashboard for emergency lights. The tank is entirely empty of gasoline. It must have been warning him since the night before. He is so stupid.

He wrenches the keys from the ignition with trembling hands, paws at the button to trigger the hazard lights but misses until Sakura presses it for him. "I fucked up," he says.

Sakura sits silently, waiting like a patient doll. He continues with a quivering voice, "I can fix this. I just need to get some gasoline. You…You wait. Just wait right here! I'll be gone half an hour. I can fix this!"

She does not offer to go with him. She nods like this was always going to happen, like she expected this of him. He was going to screw this up no matter what. If he had remembered the gasoline, he would have forgotten something else.

"Wait for me," he says. She nods. She can't even hear him.

* * *

**3. A version of chapter eighteen where Sasuke is being pathetic. It explains why he left Sakura at the gas station. I didn't like it because it felt way melodramatic, and it was kind of choppy and all over the place.**

When he opens his eyes, his blind brother is standing over him more furious than Sasuke has ever seen him.

"Get up, Sasuke," Itachi says, pent up aggravation barely concealed with effort, "This is getting ridiculous."

Sasuke tries, he really does. But the bed is just too comfortable. It's warm and soft and it smells like his older brother and Konan, lavender and sliced oranges. The femininity is soothing in its sweetness, and he can't rightly figure out why anyone would ever get out of bed on purpose.

"I understand you're depressed, little brother, but this is a pathetic waste of your strength and intelligence. Madara has put the show on hold for you two days already, and I will not ask him to do it again. You are being selfish."

He's heard this rant. Soup bowls and thermoses of neglected coffee on the night table are a tally of skipped mealtimes, but food sounds unappetizing to his caving stomach.

"So what? I never asked you for any favors," Sasuke growls, "Leave me alone."

Then it is cold. And bright. Sasuke hisses when the cocoon of blankets is ripped from his legs, clawing pathetically at the pillow as it vanishes as well. Konan appears in his bleary line of vision, holding the linens in bunches. She's frowning so deeply he wants to laugh. _Your face will stick that way._

"This is for your own good," she says, dropping the sheets on the floor in exchange for a bucket. Then icy water is plastering him to the bed and he's shouting obscenities that Itachi will make him apologize for later. "Fuck you," he concludes his speech, and curls in on his semi-nude self.

"Sasuke," Konan insists, her voice an echo of his mother's, "Get up."

"Get up," Itachi urges, impatient and humorless, like his father, "Sasuke!"

Konan sighs and Itachi sighs and then they give up. A wad of blankets hits him in the stomach and the lights go off. Sasuke wants to feel guilty, but instead he goes back to sleep. _(Pathetic.)_

* * *

"Please let me talk to him," pleads a muffled voice. Sasuke glances at the clock and finds only twenty minutes have passed. He's still soaked, but the blankets are keeping him warm. "I just want to see him."

He sits up in the darkness and stares at the shut door that divides him from his lover. For a moment he imagines the gangly, straw haired wraith he first met, and even though he reminds himself that she's different now, the image sticks.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," says his brother's rumbling baritone.

Sasuke chokes and pulls the blankets further over his head.

"I know you can hear me, Sasuke!" she screams, but he pretends he can't.

* * *

It happened like this:

He went to get her hot chocolate. (He was sick and regretful and angry, and the bruises on her wrists wouldn't stop staring at him.) The door resisted his push, and he had to throw his whole weight against it to maneuver it open. When he stumbled into the establishment, peanuts crunched beneath his tennis-shoes and the cashier gave him a disbelieving once-over.

Sasuke gave the young man what he intended to be a pacifying smile, but it caught at the corners and turned into a bewildered grimace. The run down place smelled like fryers and motor oil, the stench thick enough to close up his throat. He promised himself that after this, he'd take Sakura to a real restaurant. One with fancy chandeliers and silk table cloths. Was that too much? Would it make her uncomfortable?

"Forget something?" the cashier asked, cradling his heavy head in his hand. Sasuke already took too long earlier to decide what to get Sakura, caught between the desire to impress her and the need to protect himself with the façade that he didn't care.

He'd told her he loved her, but her response was swept away.

"Hot chocolate," Sasuke grunted, tossing quarters on the counter, quickly giving the display of cigarette cartons a once-over. A couple of drags would level his head. Then he would stop stammering and his hands would stop shaking, and he could fucking treat his woman the way she needed to be treated.

The cashier gave him a bemused smile, his eyebrow raising challengingly, "We don't sell that. We have coffee and water. You can get a soda from the fridges in the back, or a six-pack."

A sigh escaped his lips without permission and he looked to the window. He could see Sakura waiting patiently, chewing at her hangnails and threading her fingers through hair the color bubblegum.

'_God, you're fucking Gorgeous,' he whispered between clenched teeth, tangling his hands in her hair. (Please stop, it hurts!)_

"Marlboro Gold," Sasuke grumbled, throwing a few dollar bills down over his quarters with quaking arms. The man turned around to grab the pack.

"Sasuke," Sasuke heard, and he glanced around, looking for Sakura or maybe Ino or Konan. The store was empty but for a preschool-age kid fumbling with postcards and his overweight dad. Immediately, Sasuke knew what was happening, and he rolled his tense shoulders to rid himself of poltergeists.

The cashier cleared his throat. And Sasuke blinked to discover the pack of Marlboros hovering in front of his face. "S'cuse me," Sasuke whispered and skulked off to the restroom, ignoring his incomplete purchase.

The door opened with a slam, ripping the water-damaged wallpaper. The lights came on with a reluctant flicker, but they served their purpose.

"Mom," Sasuke sighed to the room, "Go away."

Whispers built in his cloudy ears as he splashed lukewarm water in his face. _Sasuke. Sasuke._

A hand on his shoulder startled him into an upright position, but there was no one in the reflection but his own sorry self.

"Sasuke," said no one, "You disappointed her."

He hung his head in defeat and uttered a quiet, "I know."

* * *

He took the back exit. No alarm sounded, despite the red lettered warning. Sasuke scuffed his shoe on the curb and tripped over a beer bottle that skidded away with an echo that rang in his ears. He laughed quietly to himself; a trapeze artist should hardly be so clumsy.

He walked through a parking lot and then over the edge of a grassy ridge. He'd been there once before (with Suigetsu, before Sasuke stolen Karin from him and painted her skin the color of her hair.) and knew that there was a bus stop on the other side of the trees. The bus could take him to a more urban area and he could get Sakura a cup of hot chocolate.

_Sasuke. Sasuke._ He stumbled on a gravelly patch and landed on his ass. "Fuck," he swore, rubbing his tailbone and continuing into the ravine. A tree branch caught the sleeve of his T-shirt and ripped a hole in it.

Daylight was wasted.

* * *

He didn't reach the bus stop, but he couldn't remember why he was headed there anyway. He just knew that his throat hurt and his head ached and he was soaked to the bone and it was dark. When he blinked up at the sky, he realized he couldn't find it. There was no North Star to guide him.

A pick-up truck pulled up to where he was hunched over on the side of the road, breathing heavily and trying to keep bile from climbing up his throat. A flashlight blared in his eyes and he winced into its blinding white.

"Do you need some help?" asked a woman, and with the glare in his face he almost thought it was her. Her long inky hair spilled past her throat and for a second, she was pinning him to the bed and begging for him to love her. Do you love me, Sasuke? _I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU ILOVE YOU I LOVE YOU._

"Orochi…" his voice caught in his throat. When he tried to back away, his legs gave out and he landed in the dirt.

"Damn, son. What happened to you?" asked a bearded man, climbing out of the cab of the truck. The flashlight left his face and he realized belatedly that it wasn't her. His mother breathed a sigh of relief in his ear and he almost cried.

The man helped Sasuke climb in the back of the truck, not requiring a word of response. The metal of the car was cool and soothing and Sasuke pressed his cheek against it to erase a burning touch from his memory.

"The trailer park. Will you take me home?" he begged.

And his mother whispered inside of him, "Oh, Sasuke. You've made a mess of things."

* * *

**4. A scene from a version of chapter eighteen where Sasuke was going to decide to stay with Madara's circus. It takes place after he runs into Ino, but all she knows is that he's made Sakura upset somehow. I didn't plan on Sasuke staying with Madara, I just wrote it because I was battling with writer's-block.**

"The show must go on," he says and heads toward his uncle's office. Ino's perfumed smell and the crunch of her high-top sneakers follow behind him.

He opens the door without preamble, strutting in with stiff shoulders and a thin-lipped frown. Ino trails in after him, making herself invisible in the doorway as Sasuke seats himself blatantly across from Madara.

"Uncle," Sasuke begins, "I've made my decision."

Madara finishes writing the sentence he began before Sasuke's entrance, without pause or acknowledgement. Ino fidgets uncomfortably in the silence, figure blocking the overly enthusiastic sunlight from filtering into the abode. Sasuke shares a brief glance with her, one that couldn't possibly channel enough of her contempt for him.

After a minute of tense quiet, Madara slowly caps the fountain pen and places it aside.

"Judging by how hard you're shaking, I'll take it you won't be joining us next season," Madara replies, smiling misleadingly.

Sasuke swallows, hard and noisily beneath the heavy scrutiny of both Ino and his uncle. But he can be as strong and stoic and confident as the best of them, and he does his damnedest to conceal his heartbreak.

"No. I'll sign your contract. I'll be your permanent trapeze artist, your poster boy, and your lackey. But it's going to be on my terms. I don't want your money," Sasuke says, and his deep voice is too large for the tiny room. Ino steps away from the doorway to let the sound escape, and the trailer bursts into bloom, Madara's golden trinkets blinking bright rays of reflected light.

Sasuke continues, backlit by the camp grounds, "When Sakura leaves, I want you to give her all the money that was going on my next paycheck. And I want you to keep sending her that money after she's gone."

Madara's lips twitch into a vague smile of amusement before he sweeps his long-nailed fingers through the ends of his hair, relaxing almost condescendingly in his chair. "I knew you would make the smart decision, Sasuke. I'll have the contract typed up and reviewed by our lawyers by the end of the week."

Ino lets out a derisive snort and slams the door behind her as she exits, her muttered curses following behind her. The room goes dark and Sasuke's eyes can barely adjust.

"One more thing," Sasuke says quickly, wanting to get out his last request before his illusion fails him, "I want a partner. Solo acts are losing popularity."

Madara grins at the empty space where Ino was standing and nods in understanding.

This circus is a dark pit of gilded lies and it's exactly where his world will end. Sasuke excuses himself; nothing matters anymore. Sakura will go home and Sasuke will sign his soul to the devil. All paths lead here.

* * *

**Here's some extraneous information, if you were wondering what happened in the nine months between the last chapter and the epilogue:**

Sakura ended up not finishing high school, but getting her GED and going to college to become a veterinarian.

Sasuke donated a large sum of money to a certain prestigious college so they would accept Sakura.

Sasuke decided not to go home to Fugaku and Orochimaru, but to take the money he earned and live on his own. During this time he became less angry and burdened.

Sakura and Naruto went back to DONT and the little nesting place beneath the bridge, but found no trace of Neji, Tenten, Kiba, or Tayuya.

* * *

**Calendar:**

prologue: christmas  
one: dec 26  
two: dec 27 and 28  
three: dec 29  
four: dec 30  
five: dec 30 & new years eve  
six: jan 7, 8, and 9  
interlude: jan 10  
seven: feb 1  
eight: feb 1  
nine: feb 2  
ten: valentine's day  
eleven: valentine's day & feb 15  
twelve: feb 15 & feb 16  
thirteen: feb 16 & 17  
fourteen: feb 18  
fifteen: feb 18  
sixteen: mar 4  
seventeen: mar 4 & 5  
eighteen: mar 6  
nineteen: mar 6 & 13  
twenty: dec 24

**I hope you will all add me to your author's alert lists! Thanks again for all your wonderful support!**

**If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or ask in a review!**

-MT


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